Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron on Monday defended his decision not to present murder charges to the grand jury hearing the case of Breonna Taylor, the 26-year-old Black woman who was shot and killed in her apartment by three Louisville police officers in March.
In an interview with Gianno Caldwell, host of the OutLoud podcast, Mr. Cameron maintained that the murder charges were not appropriate because Taylor’s boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, fired first at the officers.
“The officers were justified in returning fire,” he said. “It is not me making these decisions in a vacuum. I have a team of prosecutors and investigators with over 200 years of combined experience.”
Although Officers Jonathan Mattingly and Myles Cosgrove shot Taylor a combined six times, a grand jury decided in September not to press any charges against them.
The only charges that the grand jury decided upon were three counts of wanton endangerment for former Officer Brett Hankison, who was fired from the force in June after investigators concluded he “blindly” fired 10 shots into Taylor’s apartment.
While there is no conclusive evidence that any of Mr. Hankison’s shots hit Taylor, some of the bullets traveled into an adjacent apartment, endangering three people unrelated to the case.
Mr. Cameron on Monday said the grand jury got it right.
“It was appropriate as it relates to another officer at the scene, but not at the officers who fired in the doorway,” Mr. Cameron said about bringing charges. “They were justified in returning fire.”
Still, Mr. Cameron called Taylor’s fate “a heart-wrenching story.”
“Sometimes, the criminal justice system is inadequate to respond to a tragedy, and that is certainly the case here,” he said.
Mr. Cameron said critics need to divest their emotional involvement from the Taylor case and look at its facts.
“The role of the attorney general is to look at the facts as they are and pick out specific facts to meet a narrative,” he said.
Activists, celebrities and politicians had called for all three officers to be charged for Taylor’s death, and many blame Mr. Cameron for not holding the three accountable.
“I hope, over time, people recognize that our job was to the law and facts of the case,” he said.
• Jeff Mordock can be reached at jmordock@washingtontimes.com.
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