Federal Judge In Kentucky, a court ruled that two police officers accused of forging a warrant before the deadly raid that killed Breonna Taylor were not responsible for her death, Associated Press Instead of issuing the bogus arrest warrant, U.S. District Judge Charles Simpson said Taylor's boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, was responsible for her death because he shot the police officers first — even though he had no idea they were police officers.
The verdict came earlier this week in a civil rights case against former Louisville police detective Joshua Jaynes and former sergeant Kyle Meaney. The two were not present at the March 2020 raid when Taylor was killed. Instead, in 2022, Attorney General Merrick Garland charged the pair (along with another detective, Kelly Goodlett) with making a false statement to search Taylor’s home before the raid and then conspiring to create a “false story … to evade responsibility” for preparing a fake warrant.
Prosecutors have alleged that the bogus search warrant put Taylor in danger. But Simpson rejected the claim that armed officers raiding Taylor’s home in the middle of the night on a warrantless search warrant, based on a fabricated tip that a suspected drug dealer was receiving packages at Taylor’s apartment, had anything to do with her eventual shooting and death. “There is no direct connection between the unauthorized entry and Taylor’s death,” Simpson wrote.
Instead, he claimed that Walker was more responsible. When police stormed Taylor's apartment, Walker fired a shot, believing the police were intruders, hitting an officer in the leg. In response, police fired more than 30 shots into the apartment, five or six of which struck Taylor.
Simpson ruled that “Walker’s conduct became the proximate or legal cause of Taylor’s death.” (Walker was briefly arrested and charged with attempted murder of a police officer, but the charge was dropped. In 2022, he settled a $2 million civil lawsuit with the city, accusing the officers of violating his civil rights by not announcing themselves when they carried out the raid.)
“While the indictment alleges that Gaines and Meaney set in motion a series of events that culminated in Taylor’s death, it also alleges that Walker disrupted those events when he decided to open fire,” Simpson said.
In a statement, Taylor's family said: Associated Press They said they were “devastated” by the ruling and were still “trying to process” the decision. “The only thing we can do at this point is continue to be patient… We will continue to fight until we get full justice for Breonna Taylor,” they said.
Taylor's family also said prosecutors have told them they plan to appeal the decision. The Justice Department said it is “reviewing the judge's decision and evaluating next steps.”
For now, Simpson’s ruling has stymied the Justice Department’s civil rights case against Jaynes and Meany, reducing the charges to misdemeanors. Jaynes still faces a conspiracy charge, while Meany is charged with making false statements to investigators. Goodlett has previously pleaded guilty to the charges against him and is expected to testify against the others.
