After evaluating the evidence, a citizen grand jury decided the police officers in the Breonna Taylor case acted in self-defense, but House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is calling them murderers, contending there are two systems of justice in the United States.
“Justice was denied for Breonna Taylor and her family,” she said Thursday at her weekly news conference. “Just think if it were your daughter, your sister, your cousin, your relative, your friend, who was murdered by the police, and the charging decision held no one accountable for her death.”
Pelosi urged the Senate to pass the The George Floyd Justice in Policing Act of 2020, which she said has provisions that would have prevented Taylor’s death. The bill passed the House largely on party lines with Republican opposition.
The House speaker said that policing must be done in a way “that has justice for all.”
“We don’t want there to be two systems of justice.”
However, Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron, who is black, explained at a news conference Wednesday that the grand jury found the evidence conflicted with the public narrative that had developed since the March 13 incident.
Pelosi’s comments were “inflammatory,” said Rep. Ben Crenshaw, R-Texas, on Twitter.
“Accusing police of murder, when the evidence proves otherwise, is reckless endangerment, pure and simple,” he said. “People are listening to these words, and they’re destroying cities and shooting police officers in the face because of it.”
Stop the inflammatory rhetoric, Speaker Pelosi.
Accusing police of murder, when the evidence proves otherwise, is reckless endangerment, pure and simple.
People are listening to these words, and they’re destroying cities and shooting police officers in the face because of it. https://t.co/8r7OEizNYq
— Dan Crenshaw (@DanCrenshawTX) September 25, 2020
Cameron said Wednesday that according to Kentucky law, the use of force by Officers Jonathan Mattingly and Myles Cosgrove “was justified to protect themselves.” The only charges were three counts of wanton endangerment against fired Officer Brett Hankison for shooting into a home next to Taylor’s with people inside.
Taylor’s boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, admits he fired first at police, who contend they knocked at the door of the apartment and announced themselves before breaking in. An independent witness confirmed that the police knocked and announced themselves. Walker claims he heard the knocking but didn’t hear police announce themselves and thought it might be Taylor’s former boyfriend. Taylor was not asleep when she was shot, as was widely claimed, but was standing in the hallway of the dark apartment with Walker while he was firing at the officers.
Mattingly and Cosgrove returned fire after Mattingly was struck by a bullet that, according to forensics, came from Walker’s weapon.
It’s also been claimed that the officers were at the wrong apartment and that Taylor was not suspected of any involvement in drug dealing. The officers, in fact, had a “no knock warrant” to search Taylor’s apartment. And they had evidence of her participation in a drug ring with the former boyfriend, Jamarcus Glover.
The Louisville Courier Journal reported in August that an internal police department report, corroborated by jail phone recordings and other documents the paper obtained, show Glover was the main target in a drug probe that prompted police to request the search warrant for Taylor’s apartment.
Police had evidence packages were being delivered to Taylor’s apartment that Glover picked up. And a recorded jail call made by Glover on the same day that Taylor was shot names her as the person who was “handling” his money.
No money was found at her residence during the police search, the paper said.
Other evidence of Taylor’s involvement included a call Glover made to her from jail on Jan. 3 in which he asked her to contact one of his co-defendants to get bail money.
Taylor said the associate was “already at the trap,” a slang term for a house used for drug trafficking. Glover told her to be on standby to pick him up if he made bail.
“Love you,” he said as he ended the call.
“Love you, too,” she replied.
The Courier Journal reported there were several instances in which Taylor posted bond for Glover and another man involved in the case, Darreal Forest.
In the Jan. 3 call, Glover asked Taylor to contact a man named Adrian Walker — no relation to Kenneth Walker — to round up bail money.
After Taylor’s death on March 13, according to the internal report, Glover spoke by phone with Adrian Walker, expressing his grief.
“I’m tore,” he said. I’m tore.
“… I lose people that really be close to me. That hurt, boy.”
Glover blamed Kenneth Walker for Taylor’s death.
“At the end of the day it was not my fault,” Glover said. ” … At the end of the day, if I would have been at that house Bre would be alive, bruh. … I don’t shoot at no police.”
See Pelosi’s remarks:
