Federal prosecutors have filed new charges against two former Louisville police officers who are already facing separate charges in connection with the botched 2020 raid that resulted in the shooting death of Breonna Taylor.
In the indictments filed Tuesday, Oct. 1, and obtained, Joshua Jaynes and Sgt. Kyle Meany are accused of depriving Taylor of her civil rights and falsifying the search warrant that was used to enter the 26-year-old’s Louisville apartment unannounced.
Federal prosecutors also said the two officers “planned to execute the warrant in a manner that heightened the risk of gunfire,” by serving the warrant at night and that they withheld information in the warrant about Taylor’s boyfriend — who was in the apartment with Taylor at the time of the raid — being a licensed gun owner. The officers were not present at the time the warrant was being executed.
Taylor, an aspiring nurse who had been working as an EMT, was in her apartment with her boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, shortly after midnight on the night of March 13, 2020, when Louisville Metro Police officers executing a no-knock warrant charged through the door.
Breonna Taylor. Breonna Taylor/instagram
According to a lawsuit filed in 2020, Walker shot at police as they breached the front door and officers allegedly responded by firing more than 20 bullets into the apartment, as previously reported. It was those bullets from police that killed Taylor.
None of the officers involved in the incident were immediately charged. Instead, Walker, who was unharmed, was arrested and charged with assault and attempted murder of a police officer after he shot and injured Sgt. Jonathan Mattingly. However, the charges were dismissed with prejudice, meaning he cannot be recharged for the incident, PEOPLE reported in 2021.
As for the two officers who fatally shot Taylor, they weren’t charged because they didn’t know that the information in the warrant was allegedly false, WDRB reports.
The amended indictments come a little over a month after a federal judge ruled that the existence of the warrant was not what led to Taylor’s shooting death and dismissed felony charges of deprivation of rights, the Courier-Journal reports, citing court documents. In response, federal prosecutors filed an appeal on Sept. 23, according to the outlet.
In addition to the indictments, Jaynes is charged with conspiracy and falsification of records, while Meany faces a charge of making false statements to federal investigators, according to The Courier-Journal. It’s unclear if they have entered pleas to the charges.
Jaynes’ attorney Thomas Clay told WHAS 11that they “have received the superseding indictment which raises new legal arguments. We are researching our response.” PEOPLE couldn’t immediately identify an attorney for Meany.
The former officers are expected in court on Oct. 18, the Courier-Journal reports, citing court records.
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