Federal prosecutors filed new indictments on Tuesday against two police officers in Louisville, Kentucky, who allegedly used false information to obtain the search warrant that led to the fatal shooting of Breonna Taylor in 2020.
The superseding indictment against former Sgt. Kyle Meany and former detective Joshua Jaynes of the Louisville Metropolitan Police Department comes months after U.S. District Court Senior Judge Charles Simpson III said the 26-year-old’s death was legally caused by her boyfriend firing at police, not the warrant that authorized the raid at her home.
On March 13, 2020, officers breached the door of Taylor’s apartment with their guns drawn. Believing it was an intruder, Taylor’s boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, fired one shot with his handgun and struck an officer in the leg. Officers responded with a barrage of gunfire, killing Taylor. Her death resulted in nationwide protests, and ultimately the city of Louisville paid $12 million to her family and promised to reform its police practices, including how warrants are handled.
But according to the new indictment, Jaynes and Meany lacked probable cause to obtain the warrant in the first place and obtained it only because of false, misleading and out-of-date information in their affidavit.
“If the judge had been aware that key statements in the affidavit were false and misleading, she would not have approved the warrant for Taylor’s home and there would not have been a search at Taylor’s home,” prosecutors said in the new indictment.
Jaynes and Meany had been investigating a drug trafficking suspect who previously dated Taylor, The Associated Press reported. As part of their investigation, they obtained search warrants for four properties about 10 miles from where Taylor lived.
The officers then also obtained a warrant for Taylor’s home, falsely stating that the suspect was receiving packages there and making “frequent trips” between the four properties and Taylor’s home, the indictment said. These statements were disproved, according to the indictment.
Although police SWAT officers were assigned to the four properties, prosecutors said Meany assigned non-SWAT officers to execute the warrant at Taylor’s home, according to the indictment. Prosecutors added that neither Meany nor Jaynes informed the SWAT unit about the search at Taylor’s home.
According to the indictment, both Meany and Jaynes had knowledge that Walker had a concealed weapons permit, but they failed to inform the officers executing the warrant. None of the officers at Taylor’s home had reviewed a risk report, which would have informed them of a handgun inside her home, the indictment said.
Taylor and Walker were asleep when several officers lined up at the door after midnight on March 13, 2020. The two were in a room farthest from the front door and did not hear officers announcing themselves, the indictment said. Taylor was behind Walker as police opened fire and was struck at least six times. Walker was not hit.
Meany and Jaynes were both charged in August 2022 with deprivation of rights under color of law. Jaynes was further charged with conspiracy and falsification of records in a federal investigation. Meany was charged with making false statements to federal investigators.
The judge, however, dismissed the most serious civil rights charges last August, a decision that prosecutors have appealed. The superseding indictment, with its additional details on the allegations, would also seek to revive the charges.
Michael Denbow, the attorney representing Meany, told HuffPost his team will continue its “vigorous defense of Mr. Meany.”
Jaynes’ attorney Thomas Clay told HuffPost the new indictment raises “a number of legal issues,” which he is researching in order to file an appropriate pleading to address them.
In 2022, former Louisville detective Kelly Goodlett pleaded guilty to conspiring to falsify the affidavit for the search warrant, then lying to cover it up, the Department of Justice announced. Meanwhile, former officer Brett Hankison, one of three who executed the search warrant, is expected to be retried after a jury deadlocked in his first federal trial. A state jury found him not guilty of endangering Taylor’s neighbors.
