Louisville and America wait for a fresh, young Attorney General to deliver justice for Breonna Taylor.
by Mauve Maude
November 24, 2020
By the age of thirty-four, Daniel Cameron had accomplished much. A native Kentuckian, he’d played football for the University of Louisville, presided over the Student Bar Association at Brandeis, and mentored under Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. And just a few months before March, with an endorsement from the President, he’d been elected Attorney General of the State of Kentucky. He was the first Black Attorney General in the state’s history, and the first Republican to win the office since the 1940s.
By March, he’d already made much use of time in office, pushing abortion bans and challenging public health measures during the start of the coronavirus pandemic, and in keeping with campaign promises, fighting against law enforcement challenges. He was considered a rising star of the national Republican Party, and after speaking in the 2020 Republican convention later that year, he’d find himself on a short list of potential Supreme Court nominees, after the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. He was also engaged to be married, wedding his wife that summer.
It was in the middle of that, Daniel Cameron’s most eventful year, that Breonna Taylor was gunned down by police in her own home in Louisville.
Breonna’s boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, went to jail that morning for firing the first shot, striking Sergeant Jon Mattingly. As he was being charged for attempted murder of a Louisville police officer, the Jefferson County Commonwealth had a conflict of interest in criminally investigating Mattingly and the other two officers who fired, resulting in Breonna’s death. Mattingly had fired six shots, Detective Brett Hankison had fired ten, and Detective Myles Cosgrove had fired sixteen. It wasn’t clear at that time whose shots had hit Breonna, but she’d been shot multiple times. Due to the conflict of interest, the Commonwealth Attorney, Tom Wine, recused his office in the case and passed the investigation on to Daniel Cameron, two months after the shooting. The new Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear, who was himself the previous attorney general, asked Cameron to “carefully review the results of the initial investigation to ensure justice is done.”
Soon after AG Cameron took over as special prosecutor, Kenneth Walker’s charges were dropped without prejudice, by way of his self-defense claim. That very day, America was waking up to the news of George Floyd‘s killing, by police in Minnesota. Earlier that month, the nation had fixated on the murder of an unarmed and innocent Ahmaud Arbery, which came to national attention only after video of his shooting appeared online, more than two months after his death. George Floyd’s nonchalant murder over an alleged counterfeit $20 bill, witnessed in its eight-minute entirety by citizen bystanders and captured on close-range video, was soon played for the world. In America and beyond, after so many years of video-recorded police brutality sans accountability, outrage and protest were immediate, kicking off a summer of daily and nightly protests across the country: urban, suburban, and rural. Despite the escalating pandemic, police brutality involving the deaths of unarmed Black people, and the ensuing protests, became a center stage issue. The George Floyd protests became a movement, the likes of which America hadn’t seen for decades.
And as the national media was just beginning to pick up on Breonna Taylor’s case too, Americans began learning her name as well. It was reported that Breonna had been killed literally in her sleep. The list Americans had been keeping of simple things Black people couldn’t safely do in their homes or neighborhoods–jogging while Black, playing video games while Black, eating ice cream while Black, bird-watching while Black–was updated to include sleeping while Black. And the nation was understandably furious. Breonna, a young, hard-working, goal-oriented, and familial aspiring nurse with a bubbly personality and a caring heart, quickly became just as much an embodiment of the growing protest movement as George Floyd. America wanted her killers charged with murder.
“carefully review the results of the initial investigation to ensure justice is done”
Andy Beshear, Governor of Kentucky
When the Louisville Metro Police Department’s Public Integrity Unit released their investigation report in June, it was only released internally. The eager public was only informed that Det. Hankison, who’d fired his weapon blindly from outside Breonna’s apartment, was terminated for breaking department policy, and Sgt. Mattingly and Det. Cosgrove were put on administrative reassignment, pending Cameron’s investigation. The incident report was made public, but it was mostly left blank, and what information it did contain was largely incorrect, most notably stating that Breonna Taylor hadn’t been injured and the officers hadn’t entered her apartment by force.
But the public did then know the names of the three officers involved. Though protesters were already widely demanding the officers be charged for murder, the situation then escalated to targeted harassment and death threats against the officers and their families. The police department in general faced hostility within the community as well. Under the eyes of the country, Daniel Cameron’s review began.
Outside the Spotlight
Detective Joshua Jaynes had been with the LMPD for just over thirteen years and with narcotics for the last three, when he was assigned to the newly enacted Place Based Investigations unit. Just a few months later, he’d find himself administratively reassigned. But around the New Year, he joined an investigation into two suspected drug suppliers, Adrian Walker and Jamarcus Glover.
Jaynes suggested monitoring a couple of houses already associated with the suspects by way of a hidden neighborhood camera on Elliott Avenue, and in doing so the unit was able to identify two cars used by Jamarcus Glover. One of them, they were able to outfit with a tracking device. The other was registered to Breonna Taylor. And over a two-week period, the tracking device made frequent visits to Breonna’s house on Springfield Drive, as well as another location on Muhammad Ali Boulevard, where Jamarcus Glover’s child lived with her mother.
The unit also found a bank account of Glover’s that used Breonna’s address, and in one instance Breonna herself was seen dropping Glover off in her own car. Surreptitiously watching through a fake Instagram account, one of Jaynes’s associates who was more familiar with the suspects saw video of Glover and his baby’s mother on Muhammad Ali flashing cash and showering it on the baby. Knowing that drug dealers often stash their cash in one location and their dope in another, and often at girlfriends’ houses, Jaynes suspected that Glover’s drugs were at Breonna’s house. One day in January, his suspicions were all but confirmed when they tracked Glover to Breonna’s house, where they observed him going in emptyhanded, coming out with what appeared to be a U.S. Postal Service package, and then driving off to the house on Muhammad Ali.
So Jaynes, looking to investigate possible suspicious packages going to Breonna’s address, asked Sgt. Mattingly, who worked in the parcel interdiction department, to ask one of his contacts in the postal service. Because the LMPD didn’t have a good relationship with the post office, Sgt. Mattingly asked an associate in the neighboring Shively Police Department to find out for him. After some time, Sgt. Mattingly initially reported to Jaynes that there was an investigation involving Jamarcus Glover, but at next contact, he withdrew that, telling Jaynes it was a mistake. Someone had confused Jamarcus Glover with another J. Glover. He confirmed to Jaynes that Glover was just receiving regular packages at Breonna’s address.
In late February, the investigation began moving toward a search. A grand jury subpoena was issued for Jamarcus Glover’s bank account information. And a few weeks later, the unit was ready to move on their evidence. According to his May 19 Public Integrity Unit interview, Jaynes, who supposedly had the most experience writing them, submitted five no-knock warrants, on March 12. Jefferson County Judge Mary Shaw signed them in less than fifteen minutes: three for locations on Elliott Avenue, one for the house on Muhammad Ali, and one for Springfield Drive. That night, Jaynes went with the team to Elliott Avenue.
The AG
Throughout the summer of 2020, despite the pandemic, protests went on day and night, across the country. They started with George Floyd, preceded by Ahmaud Arbery and thousands of others, they intensified with Breonna Taylor, and more police shootings like that of Rayshard Brooks in Atlanta, Georgia, and Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wisconsin, threw more fuel on the fire. The fire consumed local businesses large and small, and singed government buildings from local police precincts to federal courthouses. Though most of the protests were peaceful (protesters even showed up at Daniel Cameron’s house), violence broke out across the nation, with civilly disobedient protesters shot by a vigilante in Kenosha and run down by cars in multiple incidents around the country. In Washington and Oregon, a region known for its white supremacist past, anti-racist protests appeared so large as to be their own cities. Anti-fascist, anarchist, and white supremacist groups jumped at the opportunity to come onto the stage, and the President jumped at the opportunity to show federal force. Despite the original impetus for the protests, Portland became a right-wing symbol of destructive leftist (Antifa) violence, and the fever pitch of protests and counter-protests promised to further divide Americans and possibly affect the outcome of a Presidential election.
And yet it seemed that the whole thing could almost be salvaged, if three police officers in Kentucky would be held responsible for the death of a young woman. Daniel Cameron quietly, patiently continued his investigation, stopping only to marry his wife and speak at the Republican National Convention.
In August, Breonna Taylor was featured on the cover of Vanity Fair, and the September issue of O: The Oprah Magazine featured Breonna on its cover as well, the first time in its history that Oprah Winfrey had not graced the cover herself. And in September, a months-long civil suit against the Louisville Metro Government resulted in a $12 million settlement for Breonna Taylor’s family. The only thing left, it seemed, was for Daniel Cameron to announce his findings.
Finally, four months after taking on the investigation, and six months after Breonna Taylor died, he did. In anticipation of the investigation’s conclusion, Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer declared a state of emergency, and Louisville prepared for a night of unrest. When the Attorney General’s office notified the press it had a result, and an imminent announcement, news outlets scrambled to let the public know. The Attorney General first spoke privately to Tamika Palmer, Breonna’s mother. Then the news broke, the world tuned in, and Daniel Cameron took the stage. After six months, the grand jury’s decision had followed the same track as the LMPD’s. Brett Hankison was charged with three counts of felony wanton endangerment and given bond. Mattingly and Cosgrove were not charged.
In his remarks on the state’s conclusion, Daniel Cameron tried to convey his and the state’s understanding of the circumstances of Breonna Taylor’s death, but also intently stated the description of his job, and the need for the truth and the law to be upheld, no matter how it fit in with public opinion, or any one perspective, or how it made anybody feel. The law, he confidently insisted, was the law, and had been upheld by the grand jury. The officers who shot Breonna Taylor, they’d concluded, were justified. And pending the conclusion of the FBI’s investigation, and Brett Hankison’s trial, he said, he’d have little more to say on the matter.
“I certainly understand the pain that has been brought about by the tragic loss of Ms. Taylor. I understand that as an attorney general. I understand that as a Black man, how painful this is. Which is why it was so incredibly important to make sure that we did everything that we possibly could.”
Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron
Backlash was, as expected, immediate. Despite the mayor’s imposed curfew, Louisville saw the night of unrest it had prepared for. Hours after the grand jury decision was announced, two LMPD officers were shot and injured trying to contain protests. Interim Chief Robert Schroeder found himself holding a nighttime press conference outside the University of Louisville Hospital, near where Breonna Taylor had worked in the ER.
In the days following the grand jury decision, public scrutiny went immediately to the only visible responsible party, Daniel Cameron, questioning how intently he’d really pursued justice for Breonna Taylor. The main concern, which Cameron initially declined to address, was whether any charges were even presented to the grand jury in relation to Breonna Taylor’s cause of death. Another concern was that only one witness of many had testified he heard the police announce their presence on the morning of March 13. No other witnesses in Breonna Taylor’s apartment complex had heard such an announcement. And the one witness who said he did, Breonna’s upstairs neighbor who’d come out of his apartment, initially said he did not hear them announce.
Then a member of the grand jury anonymously filed a motion demanding the grand jury transcript and recordings be released to the public, and that jurors be allowed to publicly discuss the proceedings, claiming Cameron had misled the public in his explanation of their decision. At the arraignment of Brett Hankison, the judge ordered that the records be added to the court file. Cameron promised to comply, while expressing misgivings about removing the privacy intended by grand juries. He then clarified that homicide charges had not been appropriate for the case, and that wanton endangerment charges, the only ones a prosecutor could prove without doubt, were the only ones presented to the grand jury. A few weeks later, Jefferson County Circuit Court Judge Annie O’Connell, who had handed down the indictment for Hankison, ruled that jurors could be allowed to speak about the case. She wrote, “As applied in this case, this court finds that the traditional justifications for secrecy in this matter are no longer relevant. This is a rare and extraordinary example of a case where, at the time this motion is made, the historical reasons for preserving grand jury secrecy are null.”
Daniel Cameron stated that though he did not agree with the ruling, he would take no action against it. According to the anonymous juror’s attorney, the juror planned to seek counsel on what actions to take next.
After September
In October, after the grand jury records were ordered released, Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer released to the public the findings of the PIU investigation. For the first time since March 13, the public was allowed to hear the account of Det. Joshua Jaynes, the man responsible for Breonna Taylor’s supposedly justified no-knock warrant, who, like Mattingly and Cosgrove, had been on administrative reassignment since June.
It was consequently revealed, that his affidavit for the warrant said he’d verified through the postal service Jamarcus Glover was receiving packages at Breonna’s house. It was also revealed that in his PIU interview two months later, he admitted he hadn’t verified anything with the postal service personally–that instead he’d had Jon Mattingly ask an officer in another police department to verify it with the post office, and through that chain of messengers they’d only verified that none of Glover’s packages to Breonna’s house were suspicious. Further, it was revealed that he’d sought out the information for himself only after Taylor’s death, when he was required to submit an investigative letter on the incident.
“wording on the affidavit is misleading . . . given Jaynes’ statement related to the information, should be reviewed for criminal actions.”
LMPD Public Integrity Unit investigation summary
Following Jaynes’s interview in May, PIU Sergeant Jeremy Ruoff requested monitoring of Jaynes’s computer from March to May. A summary of the PIU investigation in July stated that “wording on the affidavit is misleading” and that “given Jaynes’ statement related to the information, should be reviewed for criminal actions.” The FBI’s investigation into Breonna Taylor’s death is still ongoing.
Before Det. Jaynes was interviewed, before he was reassigned, and before the LMPD was banned from performing no-knock warrants, Jaynes managed to secure one more no-knock warrant on Jamarcus Glover, resulting in another arrest and a trafficking charge. After walking in and out of jail for a few more months, in August Jamarcus Glover was in again, and looking at an extradition for additional charges in Mississippi.
Daniel Cameron, who continues to defend his decision in the Breonna Taylor case, will be protected by armed security through at least the end of the year. For everyone in Louisville and America who wanted to see justice for Breonna Taylor, hope in the Federal Bureau of Investigation is about all that remains.
“Sometimes criminal law is not adequate to respond to a tragedy.”
Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron
In crime scene photos taken after the shooting and included with Louisville’s PIU report, a mat can be seen under the door opposite Breonna’s apartment, that says, “Nothing inside is worth dying for.” Breonna’s doormat said simply, “Welcome”, and a cheery sign on her door said, “Home.” Nothing was found inside Breonna Taylor’s home that night except Breonna Taylor, and the man who loved her and wanted to protect her. In Breonna’s name, there won’t be any more no-knock warrants served in Louisville, and maybe that rule will spread beyond. That decision may save lives and may be the only good that can come out of such a story. But it does nothing to dissolve the harshest reality of this story, the one thing no one can humanly deny–that nothing in this entire investigation was worth Breonna Taylor’s death.
Part Four of this story will cover the results of the FBI investigation, which concluded in August of 2022. In the meantime, here is a special update. Many thanks are due to the Louisville Courier-Journal and WAVE 3 News for their continued reporting of this case. You can read the PIU report in this WAVE 3 article, also cited within the story.