Former LAPD Sergeant Cheryl Dorsey slammed Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron following the announcement no charges would be filed against two of the officers who shot Breonna Taylor to death.
In an interview on CNN's The Lead With Jake Tapper, the former cop spoke at length about the decision, the settlement given to Taylor's family and the task force Cameron said he plans to establish.
Speaking about Cameron's speech, Dorsey said the attorney general was using "double speak" and "code talk" when talking about the "non-indictment."
She highlighted what many people have noted, which is that despite his inclusion in the announcement, ex-detective Brett Hankinson was not being charged for anything related to the killing of Taylor.
"It has nothing to do with Breonna Taylor. This was about officer Brett Hankinson firing rounds into the next door neighbors apartment. It had nothing to do with the murder of Breonna Taylor," she said. "Those officers, according to the attorney general, were justified in that use of force. Now I don't know how 16 shots fired by one is justified use of force when officers are taught to fire two shots in rapid succession and then reassess the threat."
"I found it offensive that he would call out celebrities and alleged influencers because he too says he is a Black man and somehow celebrities cant speak for Kentuckians but as a Black man he can speak for us. I understand that he is skinfolk, not kinfolk. He doesn't speak for me," the Los Angeles native, who worked within LAPD for 20 years according to WGN TV, added.
She went on to discuss a number of different issues, including the $12 million settlement the city of Louisville agreed to pay to Taylor's family. The city was lauded for also agreeing to a number of changes to policing in addition to the monetary figure, but Dorsey noted that there isn't much weight behind the settlement.
"Even with this $12 million settlement in the case of Breonna Taylor, there are all these faux reforms and things that were only promises, not anything that they have to do. The City Council must approve much of this. Lets not forget that there is no admission of wrongdoing," she noted, adding that many of the reforms within the settlement should have already been in place.
"They came up with this no-knock warrant, you [now] need a supervisor to sign off on it. That should have already been in existence. Everything they pretend to put forward really doesn't affect patrol officers, me, when I'm in uniform day-to-day in my patrol car. It wont stop and we know that because we saw Derek Chauvin sit and have us watch him for 8 minutes and 46 seconds on the neck of George Floyd and dare us to do anything about it," she said.
When asked about the details of the raid on Taylor's home and Cameron's description of what happened, she criticized the attorney general for putting forward a number of assertions that continue to be questioned by journalists, lawyers and witnesses.
Even during the press conference yesterday, Cameron was challenged by reporters on certain facts he cited that have either been disproven or disputed by witnesses at the scene.
"We've got the attorney general saying that it was justified. Now they're giving their truth [but] I don't know if its the truth. They're saying that Breonna's boyfriend fired the first shot. I don't know that thats true. We know that they'll lie. They have. They said that they rendered aid. They said that there are no cameras. They said that they announced and there has been evidence contrary to that," Dorsey explained.
"So now we're stuck with their version of events. And thats what happens when the police kill us. There is only one version to tell and thats the one they put forth. I'm not buying it," she added.
When Tapper asked Dorsey whether she thought Cameron's announcement of a new task force would "heal" divisions, she shut it down, reiterating that many of the calls for reform were for things that should already be in place for Louisville's police force.
She also said that calls by Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear for the release of information from the investigation would do little to quell the underlying desire for justice.
"[Cameron] gets no brownie points for starting a task force where they're going to look at and review things that should have already been in place. And then when they violate their own policies and procedures, they'll tell us 'thats not what you saw, thats not what we did,'" she said.
"What families want, what everyone seems to be most upset about, is a failure to hold police officers accountable when they do things that are contradictory to training and/or the law. Make [the investigation files] available or not, but hold the officers accountable. We know that won't be happening in this case because we've already heard from the AG that 16 shots through a closed door or an open door if they just entered, is somehow justified. It's offensive," Dorsey added.