Under a judge's order the attorney general of Kentucky, Daniel Cameron, has released audio recordings of the grand jury proceedings in the fatal officer-involved shooting of Breonna Taylor by Louisville officers.
In the audio, officers involved in serving a no-knock warning on Taylor's apartment say they knocked and announced multiple times before breaching the door with a ram, Fox News reports.
"We knocked on the door, said 'police,' waited I don’t know 10 or 15 seconds. Knocked again, said 'police,' waited even longer,” Louisville police Lt. Shawn Hoover said in an interview recorded March 13, the same date Taylor was shot, and later played for the grand jury.
“So it was the third time that we were approaching, it had been like 45 seconds if not a minute,” Hoover said. “And then I said, `Let’s go, let’s breach it.’”
But two neighbors interviewed by investigators with the Kentucky attorney general’s office said they did not hear police officers knocking before they entered Breonna Taylor’s apartment on the night of March 13.
Taylor’s boyfriend also told investigators that he did not hear police announce themselves.
Ben Crump, one of the attorneys who represents Taylor's family, said in a tweet on Friday that his firm would be reviewing the audio and provide updates. Crump, a prominent civil rights attorney, also represents families of Daniel Prude, Ahmaud Arbery and George Floyd.
Taylor, a 26-year-old black woman who worked as an emergency room technician, lived with her sister in an apartment in Louisville. She and her boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, were in her bedroom on the night of March 13 when police came to her door with a narcotics warrant.
Last week, the grand jury announced it had voted to indict one of the three officers who fired shots during the incident. Fired officer Brett Hankison faces wanton endangerment charges for allegedly firing bullets into the neighboring apartment with three people inside. He pleaded not guilty on Monday.
No other officers involved in the warrant service operation were charged. The grand jury's decision has sparked multiple riots in Louisville.
