Secret grand jury recordings of Breonna Taylor evidence WILL be released on Friday after Kentucky AG tried to delay it by a week as he doubles down on not recommending murder charges
Secret grand jury recordings in the Breonna Taylor case will be released on Friday after a judge granted a two-day delay.
Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron filed a motion on Wednesday asking a court in Louisville for a week's delay to allow the names of witnesses and their personal information, including addresses and phone numbers, to be redacted.
Cameron's office said this afternoon that a judge granted a shorter delay, saying the material should be made public on Friday. The audio recordings were originally supposed to be released on Wednesday.
On Tuesday night, Cameron sought to defend himself ahead of the release of records that the grand jury was shown. He has been accused by an unidentified juror of publicly misrepresenting the incident with his submission of evidence and by recommending that only one of the cops should be charged.
On Wednesday, his staff claimed they needed more time to redact some of the names involved. They want another week to complete their redactions.
The evidence includes statements from a neighbor who first claimed to have heard the cops announce themselves but then changed their story to say that they didn't.
The evidence also includes 'recordings' but it's unclear if those are bodycam recordings or other types of footage.
On Monday, a juror filed a motion earlier this week to have all of the evidence released to the public. They say they are in turmoil over the fact that Cameron's office only recommended that one of the cops should be charged with wanton endangerment, letting the two others completely off the hook, and without charging any of them with murder.
Taylor was shot and killed in her home in Louisville in March after three cops - Jonathan Mattingly, Brett Hankison, and Myles Cosgrove - opened fire on her apartment, where she was asleep with her boyfriend.
They were executing a no-knock search warrant for her apartment that was part of a drug trafficking probe into her ex-boyfriend, Jamarcus Glover, at the time.
Taylor's boyfriend at the time of her death, Kenneth Walker, awoke to the officers breaking down the door with a battering ram and opened fire. He says they did not announce themselves. The cops returned fire and Taylor was killed in the crossfire.
Daniel Cameron on Tuesday night sought to defend himself ahead of the release of records that the grand jury was shown. He has been accused by an unidentified juror of publicly misrepresenting the case
Breonna Taylor, 26, was shot and killed by Louisville police in March
Neither Jonathan Mattingly nor Myles Cosgrove have been charged over Taylor's death
Despite global outrage over the killing - one of several this year that have highlighted police brutality against black Americans and sparked protests worldwide - nothing was done to charge the officers until last week when, after a grand jury was convened, Hankison was indicted.
Cameron's office say that the two others are justified in returning fire and killing her because Walker opened fire first.
Brett Hankison is the only cop out of the three who was charged. He was charged with wanton endangerment for a bullet that went into Taylor's neighbor's home
In an interview on Tuesday night, Cameron said that the jury should have brought murder charges against the other two cops if they wanted to but that his office didn't because they would never have been able to prove them at trial.
'Basically your question is about whether we recommended any murder charges against Cosgrove and Mattingly.
'The answer is no. Ultimately, our judgement is that the charge that we could prove at trial beyond a reasonable doubt was for wanton endangerment against Hankison.
'They are an independent body.
'If they wanted to make an assessment about different charges, they could have done that.
'But our recommendation was that Mattingly and Cosgrove were justified in their acts and their conduct,' he told WDRB TV.
The juror spoke through their lawyer to say they were never given the option to charge the other two cops and that they were in 'turmoil' over the outcome.
'This is something where the juror is not seeking any fame, any acclaim, any money,' their attorney, Kevin M. Glogower, told The New York Times on Tuesday.