The Daily - The Killing of Breonna Taylor, Part 2

Episode Date: September 10, 2020

This episode contains strong language. “So there’s just shooting, like we’re both on the ground,” Kenneth Walker, Breonna Taylor’s boyfriend, said of the raid on her home. “I don’t know where these shots are coming from, and I’m scared.”Much of what happened on the night the police killed Ms. Taylor is unclear.As part of an investigation for The New York Times, our correspondent Rukmini Callimachi and the filmmaker Yoruba Richen spoke to neighbors and trawled through legal documents, police records and call logs to understand what happened that night and why.In the second and final part of the series, Rukmini talks about her findings. Guest: Rukmini Callimachi, a correspondent for The New York Times. For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily Background reading: Run-ins with the law by Jamarcus Glover, Ms. Taylor’s ex-boyfriend, entangled her even as she tried to move on. An investigation involving interviews, documents and jailhouse recordings helps explain what happened the night she was killed and how she landed in the middle of a deadly drug raid.

From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. He got a job. No one said he was a violent crime. No one said he was. We have work to do in terms of building trust with the people that we have sworn to serve and protect. Yesterday, my colleague Rukmini Kalamaki

told the story of how police in Louisville, Kentucky ended up at Breonna Taylor's door. She was coming for everything she wanted this year. 2020 was her year. Today, what thousands of pages of documents and hours of interviews tell us about the night that she was killed and whether any of the officers involved

will ever be charged. It's Thursday, September 10th. Rukmini, I know that this will make for difficult listening for some people, but can you walk me through what you have learned about the night of March 12th? Yeah. So leading up to that night, Breonna Taylor had just worked four overnight shifts at the hospital where she was employed as an ER tech. She was pretty tuckered out and she spent the day with her boyfriend, Kenny Walker. Literally was just chilling pretty much for the most part of the day. Later, they went on a date to a steakhouse. Ended up going to Texas Row House.

And they headed home around nine o'clock that night. It was a great day and it was a normal day. Usually they went to his apartment, which was just a few minutes away, where he lived alone. They didn't go to hers typically because she lived with her little sister and her two-year-old goddaughter who spent several nights a week there. But that particular night, the night of March 12th, Brianna's sister was on a trip to California. Her goddaughter was staying with relatives somewhere else. And so they decided to head home to Brianna's apartment because they knew that they would have the place themselves. We went back in the house.

It was in between watch a movie and play Uno. And we decided to do both. According to Kenny's account, she baked some cookies. She served them with ice cream. They played a game of Uno. We didn't make it halfway through the Uno game before she was falling asleep. And then they turned on Netflix and curled up in bed. She just went to sleep and then I was just laying there. Then it was about over for me too. The movie was watching us. What we now know is that Wilde's casual date happened inside her apartment, outside her apartment, starting at around 10 p.m., just an hour after Breonna Taylor and Kenny Walker had returned from the steakhouse, a handful of plainclothes police officers from the Louisville Metro Police Department began circling around the parking lot, surveilling her place in preparation for a coordinated raid that was aiming to gather evidence of what they believed was a criminal drug syndicate run by Jamarcus Glover, Breonna Taylor's ex-boyfriend.

their tactical vests went and lined up in front of apartment four. And the only thing they noted was the blue glow of the light that was coming from her TV in her bedroom window. This is Amanda Seeley, Global Metro Police Department Public Integrity Unit. Also with me is Sergeant Chad Tennell, the PAU officer. Now, for what happens next that night, we've spoken to neighbors, we've gone through police documents. I am here with... Is it your name? Is it Kenny or Kenneth? Kenneth.

And we also have the recorded statement that Kenny Walker gave to the police a few hours after the events of that night. This will be a recorded statement from Sergeant John Mattingly. And the recorded statement from the officer who led the approach to Breonna Taylor's apartment. Sergeant, are you aware this statement is being video and audio taped? Yes. John Mattingly. How long have you been on the department? Since June of 2000. At around 1240 a.m., both Kenny and Mattingly say that it all started with a knock on Breonna Taylor's door.

When we all got up in line, I knocked on the door. There was a loud bang at the door. Banged on the door. She pops up out of sleep and scared her to death. Both say they didn't hear any response through the door. First thing she said, who is it? No response. There was a second knock. Banged on it again, no response. Another knock at the door. She's like, who is it? Loud at the top of her lungs, no response. Mattingly says that after their third knock. At that point, we started announcing ourselves, please, please come to the

door. Please, we have a search warrant. They began loudly announcing themselves, screaming, police, police, police. There's another knock at the door. She's yelling at the top of her lungs. And I am too at this point. Who is it? But Kenny says. No response. All they heard was the knocking.

They never heard any voices. No answer, no anything. So we're like, what the heck? And at this point. I'm scared to death. They're both frightened. And in the confusion that happened, Kenny puts on Brianna's pants. That's how scared and startled they both were.

I was honestly thinking it was because we've been on and off together. Kenny says to investigators later that what he thought was going on is that the person at the door was Brianna's ex-boyfriend. He never names the ex-boyfriend, but officials say that his description makes clear that he's referring to DeMarcus Glover. And he popped up over there once before I was there, like, a couple months ago. So that's what I thought was going on. And that's why he says that he reaches for his gun. So then I grab my gun, which is legal.

Like, I'm licensed to carry everything. I've never even fired my gun outside of a range. And he and Brianna, who are now barefoot but partially dressed, begin to walk outside of their bedroom. We start walking towards the door to go see who it is. On the other side of the door... He kept banging and announcing. Mattingly and other officers say that at this point they were banging very loudly, and with every beat they were screaming,

police, police, police, announce yourself, police, search warrant. I probably banged on the door six or seven different time periods, probably lasted between 45 seconds and a minute. Mattingly says that at this point, they feel that they've given Breonna Taylor plenty of time to come to the door. And at that point, Lieutenant Hoover said, go ahead and hit it. So I looked at Mike and said, go ahead. And at this point, they decide that they're going to ram in the door. So he hits the first time and it hits right on the door handle. There's a man who is armed with a battering ram. He hits the door once.

Didn't move the door. They hit it a second time. Second time he hits, it almost knocks the door open. And I could see a crack in the door leading into the apartment. So I said, this one's going to go. And then finally, they punch it through. So he hit the third time. And as soon as he hit the door, he came out and they're yelling, please search warrant, please search warrant. As soon as I cleared the threshold of the front door,

I could see down the hallway, there's a bedroom door on the right and there's a male and a female. Now, this is important. Officer Mattingly claims that as they beat down the door, he steps into the apartment through the threshold, and he's able to see down a long hallway. This is a hallway that's roughly 25 to maybe 30 feet long, and immediately what he sees are two human figures. And as I turn the doorway, he's in a stretched out position with his hands with a gun. And as his eyes are adjusting, he suddenly realizes that the male figure is standing with his hands facing forward

and in his hands are what looks to be a gun. And as soon as I clear, he fires, boom. Now, in Kenny's telling, what looks to be a gun. And as soon as I clear, he fires, boom. Now, in Kenny's telling, Kenny and Brianna are walking side by side. They've just left the bedroom. They've stepped not even a couple of feet into the hallway. Then the door, like, comes, like, off the hinges.

The door comes flying off the hinges. This happened fast, like, it was like an explosion. And immediately... As it flew open... He aims his gun and he shot right away. I just let off one shot. He says, I go boom. Boom. It was all in like one motion. It was like simultaneous, like boom, boom. Then all of a sudden there's a whole lot of shots. As soon as the shot hit, I could feel the heat in my leg. And so I just returned fire. I got four rounds off.

Mattingly says that he lets off immediately. And it was like simultaneous. It's boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Four shots. I slid back on my butt to get out of the line of fire and then reached around. I think I got two more off around the corner of the door. And then two shots after that. And then I could really feel the blood in my leg. So around the corner of the door. And then two shots after that.

And then I could really feel the blood in my legs, so I reached down and felt it. My hand was full of blood, and I yelled at them, I've been hit in my femoral. He's been hit in what's called the femoral artery. This is one of the major arteries in your body. It's a very dangerous wound. You can bleed out in a matter of minutes if it's not treated. And the next couple of minutes are just a scene of utter chaos. One of his colleagues tries to step on the wound. Another officer takes off his belt

to put on a tourniquet. You hear them on the radio calling for the ambulance. The ambulance tries to rush to the apartment complex and the ambulance goes to the wrong entrance. It hits an entrance that happens to have a gate on it. So they tell the ambulance, just ram it. But it doesn't seem to be able to go past the crushed metal. So at this point, they're trying to get Mattingly to the first responders and he can't walk. He's basically told to get on top of the trunk as they slowly drive the car towards the ambulance, which is now ensnared in the crushed gate. He gets in the ambulance, and finally they're able to start taking him to a hospital. During all of this confusion, a third officer, whose name is Detective Brett Hankinson,

who had been in the same formation at the front of the door, he had left that formation, he had run back out through the breezeway, and he had run into the parking lot. So he's now outside the apartment complex, facing Brianna's residence and the other apartments there. And he begins blindly firing through Brianna's window and her patio door, both of which were covered with blinds. So he had no way of seeing inside. The bullets from Brett Hankinson's gun, we believe, are the ones that ripped not just through her apartment, but also through one of the apartments that was in the back, where a young woman who was pregnant and her five-year-old child were asleep in separate bedrooms.

Luckily, the bedrooms where they were sleeping were not in the line of fire, and they were not harmed. So, they're just shooting, like, we're both on the ground. I didn't know if these shots, where they're going or stuff. You know, I'm scared. I'm like freaking out. I can't register anything that's going on. Where did you go then? I just dropped on the ground, like right next to her, but where I dropped on the ground,

like there's a room to the left when you come out of her room. So there's a wall right here-ish. Back inside Brianna's apartment, Kenny says that he room to the left when you come out of her room. So there's a wall right here-ish. Back inside Brianna's apartment, Kenny says that he dropped to the floor and he managed to crawl on his hands and knees into the second bedroom. And then when all the shots stop, I'm like panicking. She's right there on the ground like like, bleeding. And nobody's coming. And I'm just confused and scared. And I feel the same right now.

At that point, he makes three phone calls in quick succession. I called my mom. At 12.46 a.m., he called his mom. And I told her that somebody just kicked in the door and shot Briso. His mom said, Kenny, Kenny, you have to call 911. My mom's like, call 911 right now. Call 911 right now. At 1247 a.m. 911, operator Harris, where is your emergency? He finally calls 911. I don't know what's happening. Somebody kicked in the door and shot my girlfriend.

Okay, where are you located? I'm 3003 Springfield Drive apartment for my guy. Okay, how old is your girlfriend? She's 26. Bernie, you said 26? Where was she shot at? I don't know. She's on the grill right now. don't know. She's on the grill right now. I don't know. I don't know. Is she alert and able to talk to you? No, she's not. Breathe.

God. Help. Oh, my God. Yes, help. What's your name, sir? Oh, my name is Kenneth Walker. You said Kenneth. Help. Oh, I am. What's your name, sir? My name is Kenneth Logan. You say Kenneth. Oh, my God. I'm so sorry.

What the fuck? Oh, my God. And we see from the call logs that that appears to be the first time that police and officials become aware of the fact that there's a young woman who is inside the apartment and that she's seriously wounded. Then I called Brianna's mama. I hung up on 9-1-1. Two minutes after that, at 12.49 a.m., he calls Tamika Palmer, Brianna Taylor's mom. And then I told her what just happened. And when I was on the phone with her, that's when I kind of realized that it was the police, because now they're yelling like, come out, come out.

that it was the police, because now they're yelling, like, come out, come out. We also have cell phone footage from bystanders, from neighbors who had at this point woken up, and they managed to capture Kenny being brought out. Before I stepped out, I yelled to them, I'm like, hey, I got my phone in my hand. Like, I'm unarmed. Like, you know, so I come out. They tell him to come up with his hands above his head and walking backwards. So I just start walking backwards, and I clearly have nothing in my hands, anything. I'm walking backwards, and he has this dog right here barking like three feet behind me,

like the dog is going crazy. And he's like, if you don't get down or something on your knee, I'm doing everything they're asking me to slowly and surely. I'm scared to death. And I told him I'm scared. He's weeping and sobbing and crying. They come and they put the cuffs on me and stuff, and then they're walking me away.

And that was it. That was the end of everything. It's only after they've taken Kenny outside of the apartment that the police go inside and see what's happening. And at this point, Brianna was gone. We'll be right back. Rukmini, given all the documents that you have had access to and reviewed, what do you make of that night, this raid? I think that we can say with some confidence that there were a series of things that went wrong.

Let's start with what we know about the raid itself. We know that the police had a meeting just a few hours before the raid, and they told the officers that were heading to her apartment that she was living alone, that she had no children, no pets, and no boyfriend other than Jamarcus Glover. They got this wrong. They assumed that she's home alone and that she lives alone. They don't know anything about her sister, they don't know anything about her goddaughter, and they don't seem to know anything at all about Kenny. At that same meeting, the police were told that even though the judge had approved a so-called no-knock warrant, they were going to change it to a knock and announce, meaning that the police have to knock and announce themselves as police officers. Mattingly then says in a statement that they

repeatedly announced themselves, that they screamed out, police, police, police. Did you hear them call out and say, I'm police, anything like that? Of the roughly one dozen people that I spoke to, I found only one neighbor. And it was the man who happened to be immediately on the staircase above Breonna Taylor's apartment who said that he heard the police announce themselves. And you're sure you only heard police once? Police? Yeah, I heard police. And he claims that he heard them say it only once. One time. Police. I never once heard them that night announce themselves. There was no identification that, oh, we're police. I didn't hear that at all. Everybody else said that the first thing they heard...

No, they're just pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop. ...were the shots. Plus... Welcome back to Face the Nation. We have the actions of Brett Hankinson when he shot blindly into Breonna Taylor's apartment from dozens of feet outside in the parking lot. I just want to read from a letter

that was written to one of the three officers terminated. It was from the chief of police to that officer, and it is scathing. His actions have been denounced by his own department as reckless. It says, Brett Hankinson displayed an extreme indifference to the value of human life when you wantonly and blindly fired 10 rounds into the apartment of Breonna Taylor. He was fired in June, and in his termination letter, the police chief said that his behavior that night was, quote, a shock to the conscience.

So that's what we know at this point about the raid itself. But there are other pieces of the puzzle that are still missing. Like what? This department has withheld some of the most basic information that you typically get to see at this point in an investigation. We have not seen her autopsy. The body camera footage of the SWAT team officers who responded to the call have not been released. And the statements of the other officers at the scene, other than Mattingly, have also been withheld.

And at the same time. Hello, this is a prepaid collect call from an inmate at Louisville Metropolitan Corrections Department. inmate at Louisville Metropolitan Corrections Department. Investigators have uncovered more evidence indicating an ongoing relationship between Breonna and Jamarcus Glover. Hello. What's up, boys? And this specifically came just a few hours after her death in a number of jailhouse calls that Jamarcus made to another woman. So where your money at? You want my money at? Yeah. See what you mean?

My brie head ain't like eight grand. And I still got money. In those calls, DeMarcus is trying to make bail to get out of jail. Brie had eight grand of your money? Yeah. Did she tell you where it was? Like a twit. She ain't got time to tell me.

Now she dead. And he tells that woman that he has left eight and six, eight grand and six grand at Breonna Taylor's home. So $14,000 at Breonna Taylor's home. And he doesn't tell just that woman. He also tells another associate on a different call where they have a discussion about where the money is. And Jamarcus says regarding the money at Breonna Taylor's home, it was there, it was there, it was there. And so investigators point out that Jamarcus Glover never had any kind

of legal employment. And they're saying that these thousands of dollars are there for the proceeds of his drug trade, and that she was essentially handling the proceeds of his business for him. But even if Jamarcus was storing thousands of dollars at Breonna Taylor's apartment, a claim that, by the way, has not been verified, everyone I've spoken to, advocates for her family and officials at the city and state level, agree that that should not have led to this young woman getting killed. We are outside the Attorney General's home, telling him that we want justice. Justice for who? In Louisville and around the country,

protests calling for justice for Breonna Taylor have been continuing every single day. And those protests have brought about some change. The police chief in Louisville was forced out. He resigned. And just a couple days ago, an African-American female police officer has been named as interim chief. And finally, after heated protests and emotional pleas, Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer signed Breonna's! And finally... After heated protests and emotional pleas, Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer signed Breonna's Law today. The city council passed something called Breonna's Law,

which is a law that makes no-knock search warrants illegal. Also, Kentucky Senator Rand Paul introducing the Breonna Taylor bill that would ban no-knock warrants. There's also a movement to make Breonna's law a national law. Charge the cops! Charge the cops! Charge the cops! Charge the cops! But the protesters who have been flooding into the streets day in, day out, night after night, have been calling for something very specific. Arrest the cops! Arrest the cops! Arrest the cops! Arrest the cops! They're calling for the three officers who opened fire that night to be criminally

charged and to be arrested and sent to prison. In fact, Oprah Winfrey has erected 26 billboards around Louisville asking for just that. Arrest the cops! Arrest the cops! Arrest the cops! Arrest the cops! We also— We also— Want the neighbors— Want the neighbors to know that we will keep coming back.

They won't know the time. And what I've learned is there are real obstacles to charging those three officers. And what do you mean by that? What are those obstacles? In this case, there aren't a lot of things that people agree on, but there's consensus on two major points. One of them is that Kenny shot first. And under Kentucky law, he has the right to use lethal force against somebody entering his home or apartment if he believes that that person is an intruder. But Kentucky law also protects police officers who are using deadly force in self-defense. And the legal experts I've talked to

say that it's hard to see how Mattingly, who was shot in the leg, and his colleague who's standing right next to him, how their actions are not going to be seen as opening fire in self-defense. The second major point of consensus is that the officer who blindly fired through Breonna Taylor's patio door and the window and the walls of her home from the parking lot outside, everybody agrees that he violated department policy and that he most likely acted in a criminal manner. What I've been told is that if the forensic analysis of the ballistics, of the bullets that were shot that night, showed that Hankinson's bullets did not harm her,

then the only charge that he can be charged with under Kentucky law is something called wanton endangerment. His actions endangered Breonna and others in the neighborhood and his colleagues. And that's a much lesser charge than what protesters have been calling for. And while protesters are demanding that these three officers be charged with murder and be arrested and be put away, what officials are telling me is that the charge of murder against any of these three officers is looking unlikely. Bring him here with me! Justice! Justice!

We're going to murder him! Justice! We're going to murder him! We're going to murder him! You know, I've spent months poring over thousands of pages of legal documents, police records, call logs. I've gone through terabytes of data trying to understand what happened to Breonna Taylor.

It was in the final couple of days of my reporting that a source handed me her scrapbook. She was a scrapbooker. She had a scrapbook where she would cut out little pictures of herself and her friends, her mom, her sister, and she would note down momentous occasions in her life. And in this scrapbook, there's one specific entry that has really stayed with me. She wrote it on the occasion of her graduation from high school in 2011. And she says, graduating this year on time is so important to me because I'll be the first in my family to accomplish this. My mother wasn't able to finish high school on time and get her diploma, so I know how much my getting mine means to her.

To have my entire family expecting me to graduate and set a good example for the younger ones is one of the biggest responsibilities I've ever had. But I refuse to let anyone down, regardless of the amount of pressure I have on my shoulders. I want to be the one who finally breaks the amount of pressure I have on my shoulders. I want to be the one who finally breaks the cycle of my family's educational history. I want to be the one to finally make a difference. I want to be the one that everybody can look up to with smiles on their faces, telling me how proud of me they are, the one they can finally say you did it to. I want that to be me. Brianna Shackel Taylor We'll be right back.

Here's what else you need to know today. Well, I think, Bob, really, to be honest with you. Sure, I want you to be. I wanted to always play it down. I still like playing it down. Yes. Because I don't want to create a panic. In a series of recorded interviews with the journalist Bob Woodward at the start of the pandemic, President Trump

acknowledged that he had knowingly played down the threat of the coronavirus, even though he was aware that it was deadly. It goes through air, Bob. That's always tougher than the touch. You know, the touch, you don't have to touch things, right? But the air, you just breathe the air. That's how it's passed. And so that's a very tricky one. That's a very delicate one. It's also more deadly than your, you know, even your strenuous flus. The recordings from February and March, which were published on Wednesday by The Washington Post, show that Trump was deliberately misleading the public

just as the virus began killing tens of thousands of Americans. He knew how deadly it was. It was much more deadly than the flu. He knew and purposely played it down. Worse, he lied to the American people. In response, Trump's Democratic rival, Joe Biden, sharply criticized the president during a campaign stop, saying that Trump had abdicated his responsibility to protect the public. He failed to do his job on purpose.

It was a life and death betrayal of the American people. That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Barbaro. See you tomorrow.