A federal judge recently dismissed two felony charges against two former Louisville, Kentucky, police officers who were involved in obtaining the search warrant for the 2020 drug raid that killed Breonna Taylor. In a ruling issued last Thursday, U.S. District Judge Charles R. Simpson III concluded that the Justice Department had failed to allege facts sufficient to support two felony counts against former Detective Joshua Jaynes and former Sgt. Kyle Meany under 18 USC 242, which makes it a crime to "willfully" deprive someone of his constitutional rights "under color of any law." But Simpson left in place several other misdemeanor and felony charges stemming from the no-knock warrant, which prosecutors say was not supported by probable cause.
Despite their no-knock warrant, the three plainclothes officers who approached Taylor's door around 12:40 a.m. on March 13, 2020, banged on the door before smashing it open with a battering ram. They said they also announced themselves, although that claim was contradicted by nearly all of Taylor's neighbors. Taylor's boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, was in bed with her at the time. He later said he heard no announcement and had no idea that the men breaking into the apartment were police officers. Alarmed by the banging and the ensuing crash, he grabbed a handgun and fired a single shot at the intruders, striking Sgt. Jonathan Mattingly in the thigh.
