To: Detroit/Seattle
Workers' Voice mailing list
November 9, 2020
Re: why the grand jury didn't indict anyone for the racist murder of
Breonna Taylor
The killing of 26-year old Breonna Taylor was another atrocity committed against black people by the racist system, this time by the Louisville Metro Police Department under the guise of “fighting drugs.” Neither Taylor, nor Kenneth Walker, her friend at her apartment raided by the police, were involved in the drug business. A former boyfriend, the drug dealer Jamarcus Glover, who now had little to do with Taylor’s life, did use Taylor’s address for some mailing, but this was nothing more than for clothing and shoes. That was already confirmed by post office investigators. Taylor had a clean legal record, had worked as an EMT for the city of Louisville, was currently employed as an emergency room technician at two hospitals, and was set on a career as a nurse. Kenneth Walker too had committed no crimes. Nevertheless, despite such pathetic evidence, the police considered Taylor’s apartment fit to get a “no knock” warrant from Jefferson Circuit Judge Mary Shaw. Clearly, the racist system was already in play. The cops, Cosgrove, Mattingly and Hankison, were given the green light to act as armed terrorists, smashing in to Taylor’s apartment without warning and shooting her to death.
The police who murdered Breonna faced no consequences for their crime. The Attorney General of Kentucky has set them free without any charges though they both shot defenseless Breonna in cold blood. There are charges against the third cop, Hankison, of felony wanton endangerment for shooting wildly into another apartment (instead of at the real target!). The Kentucky Attorney General, Daniel Cameron, assures Breonna’s family that, being African American, he understands the situation among black people – but they must accept the verdict of the grand jury, not the mob. However the secret tale told by the pro-cop AG to the grand jurors in September started coming to light at the end of October thanks to the fight waged by a member of the jury. Another juror has volunteered to join the exposure of AG Daniel Cameron. Some audio has come out, but the full story of Cameron's instructions to the grand jury is still hidden.
The police claimed they behaved themselves. They say: We announced ourselves several times before we broke down Taylor’s door. As well, someone in the apartment fired the first shot (Kenneth Walker-1 shot), so this gives us cops the right to return fire (32 shots), and that includes kill Breonna Taylor even if she did not fire a shot. (About 10 of the 32 shots were later found to be wrongfully fired for shooting randomly into other apartments -- evidently for not shooting at Taylor or Walker!)
The police claimed they never actually used the “no knock” warrant. Why, they most certainly knocked on the door and identified themselves as the police because they, as upstanding law enforcement officers, would never think of violating the rules, would they?
Then, they say, Taylor’s boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, fired a shot at them, hitting Officer Mattingly in the leg. This in turn gave them the right to kill Taylor. Or jeopardize anyone else around. One crazed officer fired into an adjacent apartment where a pregnant woman, a 5-year-old child, and the father were asleep. On the face of it, one can see the police have no shame for their horrendous crimes.
Meanwhile the Kentucky Attorney General continued the hoax. He plays on the fact that he’s African-American. He says he’s told every detail. If you are rightfully suspicious? Just take it up and go home! He doesn’t say how he rules in favor of the cops to whom he is tied by every police organization or because he is a Trump loyalist, or a former contender for the Supreme Court, or a former clerk for Trump’s Republican lackey Mitch McConnell. No, just look how proud Cameron looks in a picture standing next to “law and order” Trump. Clearly Cameron would not overlook the wrong-doing by the cops, would he!
From the start, it was pretty clear that, once again, the racist criminal justice system would provide no satisfactory relief or answers for the victims of its police terror. Well, the mayor of Louisville coughed up $12 million to Breonna’s family in a settlement. But the truth was what mattered, the truth about the police murder. And the need for all those who participated in the bloody raid on Breonna’s home and covered up for them to be tried for murder or the cover-up. They all should be likewise imprisoned. The police story about “fighting drugs” was little more than hiding behind the typical way racist cops treat people.
Further details have been uncovered about the extent to which the LMPD and the whole racist judicial system was behind Breonna’s murder. The “no knock” warrant was a fraud. Supposedly Det. Mattingly got the warrant for Judge Shaw on the basis that Taylor’s address was being used by drug dealer Glover to deliver boxes, presumably of drugs. There was a small problem with this, however, namely that Mattingly already knew that wasn’t true because he had been told so by two other LMPD “brothers”. Still, Mattingly went on to enlist two cohorts in the suburban Shively Police Department to see if they could find suspicious mail going to Taylor’s address. Nothing came of that except Louisville postal inspector Tony Gooden testified that there were no suspicious packages from Glover to Taylor. But, fed with Mattingly’s lies, Mattingly’s police fellow Joshua Jaynes goes before Judge Shaw and gets what by all accounts should be considered an illegal warrant. This is OK in the racist, phony drug war.
Now, however, everybody is throwing each other under the bus. Judge Shaw is turning over the case to the FBI. Mattingly tells everyone he had little to do with getting the case together to present to the judge; it was this other guy Jaynes. Jaynes, of course, was a willing liar himself. Ah, bourgeois justice at work!
A second key issue, perhaps the one raised most often by the defenders of the police, is that Kenneth Walker fired the first shot at the police. This gives the police then the right to return fire, kill Breonna Taylor, blindly shoot up the rest of her apartment, but not her neighbor’s, etc. and declare they were acting in self-defense. But what of the rationale of the state’s Stand Your Ground rules? E.g. If someone invades your home, you have the right to shoot them.
If we think about the present case there’s a couple of things to consider. Stand Your Ground rules do not apply to cases where the police are entering. But that is only the case if the police have made it clear that they are entering. This is where the police case falls to the ground. Attorney General Daniel Cameron boasts that he has one witness who was there who can attest that the police announced themselves. He doesn’t mention how eleven other close witnesses heard no such thing. Moreover, Cameron’s star witness himself consistently denied hearing the police announce themselves, from the time he was first interviewed by the police and since. The exception Cameron relies on is an alleged “police did announce” comment made by his star witness during an interview by the police two months after the incident, which is denied by the witness.
A connected matter is what did the shot fired by Kenneth Walker actually hit? This is the shot he fired right after the police were smashing down the apartment door. Walker hadn’t the slightest idea they were the police and he fired a low shot towards the floor from his 9mm gun, hoping to scare off the invaders. The AG Cameron and the police swore that it was Walker’s 9mm bullet that wounded Officer Mattingly in the thigh as he entered the apartment after the door was smashed open by a battering ram by another officer. They contend that only Walker had a 9mm gun, all the officer’s shots were a larger .40 caliber. But the Kentucky State Police ballistic test result “neither identified nor eliminated from having been fired” from Walker’s gun, the bullet that hit Mattingly. It is also true that Officer Hankison had been issued a 9mm gun by the LMPD, though his lawyers deny he had it on him at the time. Is that true? Lawyers for Walker still have other questions which is not that surprising given that when Officer Hankison started shooting, he shot all over the place and Mattingly could well have been hit by him if they turned to certain positions.
There are other questions outside experts and lawyers have pointed
out, including the following one relevant to the shooting by Hankison
and the entire police operation. After Mattingly was taken to the
hospital, he was soon visited there by Hankison, without any special
police escort as required as part of the police investigation of the
shooting. This provided Hankison an opportunity to “get their story
straight” before being interviewed, and it is hard to believe Hankison
did not do this given he was aware of his frantic shooting episode and
possible charges. Hankison’s lawyer has tried to laugh away many such
questions as ridiculous and absurd. But leaves them unanswered. Here’s
one thing for sure, though. LMPD Lt. Dale Massey testified that several
officers including Hankison and Cosgrove refused to leave the crime
scene and be paired up with escorts as required by police policy so the
investigation could begin. (1)
It is easy to get a grip on the bitter, self-serving, racist nature of the police in an email sent from Sgt. Mattingly to all his LMPD colleagues as well as other authorities whom he thinks did not come down hard enough against the protesters and thus “failed us in epic proportions for their own gain and to cover their asses.” (2) This was sent out soon after he helped murder Breonna Taylor. Below we reprint some excerpts from this particular email:
“You [the police-ed.] DO NOT DESERVE to be in this
position. The position that allow thugs to get in your face and yell,
curse and degrade you. Throw brick, bottles and urine on you and expect
you to do nothing ... The position that if you make a mistake during
one of the most stressful times in your career, the department and FBI
(who aren’t cops and would piss their pants if they had to hold the
line) go after you for civil rights violations. ... Your civil rights
mean nothing, but the criminal has total autonomy."
"We wanted to do the right thing in the midst of an
evil world ... We as police DO NOT CARE if you are black white,
Hispanic, Asian, what you identify as...this week. We aren’t better
than anyone, This is not an us against society [thing-ed.], but it is
good versus evil."
"No matter the ineptitude in upper command or the
mayors office ... DO NOT give the pencil pusher at the top, you know
the ones who are too scared to hold the line, a reason to open
investigations on you."
"I know we did the legal, moral, and ethical thing
that night. It’s sad how the good guys are demonized, and criminals are
canonized."
"Remember you are just a pawn in the Mayors
political game. ... Now go be the Warriors you are, but please be safe!
None of these “peaceful” protesters are worth your career or freedom."
Clearly, Sgt, Mattingly sees himself as a combative “warrior” fighting the battle of “good vs. evil”, as someone who should not be restricted by any “pencil pushers”, the FBI, and any cowards who would “piss their pants if they had to hold the line.” Why doesn’t everyone see him as inspired by nothing but “legal, moral, and ethical” virtues? He whines when he doesn’t get enough sympathy because he knows no bounds to fight the thugs who throw rocks and urinate.
Now we know why Mattingly was happy to lie to get a fake “no knock” warrant. Now we also know why Mattingly thought there was nothing wrong when his buddy, Officer Hankison, talked to him in the hospital without the required police escort soon after Breonna’s killing. These two officers clearly had the time to get their stories straight. Can anyone doubt our goodly savior passing up such an opportunity?
Mattingly’s statement tries to sound a bit enlightened. It talks about being non-discriminatory against any group and not being better than anyone. But this fools no one. He just went on a rampage against a number of black people, without regard for whether they were criminals or not, and vents his ire against protesters who stand up against police violence and live by the motto that “black lives matter.” He considers the oppressed people ok just as long as they stay as oppressed.
As for those who directly fired shots, only one has received any kind of punishment and that was minor considering the circumstances. Hankison was charged with three counts of first degree of wanton endangerment, which is another way of saying he shot without any idea of what he was shooting at and the lives of those he targeted. This is a relatively minor felony with at most a few years in jail. Brett Hankison was fired from the police force and has pled not guilty.
Officer Cosgrove’s bullet was the one that killed Breonna Taylor. He remains on the LMPD and is trying to raise $75,000 to buy out his present reassignment service with the LMPD. No charges for this assassin. If AG Cameron is going to charge Harkison with wanton endangerment, why not also Cosgrove and Mattingly? That would hold them at least partly responsible for the death of Breonna Taylor, the innocent victim of a botched raid. But no, he didn't. Yet if one has access to “Recording 4” of the 15 Audio Tapes released from the Grand Jury starting in early October, you can hear Cosgrove say “I just sensed where I fired” and “It was a surreal thing. If you told me I didn’t do something at that time, I’d believe you. If you told me I did do something, I’d probably believe you, too.” Indeed, Cosgrove told AG Cameron he was "immediately overwhelmed" by bright flashes when the door broke down and saw what he thought was a "larger than normal human shadow" and fired at it. How can this be anything but someone who is shooting randomly without regard to life? Cameron is such a police bootlicker, he can’t see this.
Now to Mattingly. He says he was shot early, but even while wounded
he managed to crawl around a little and get off a few rounds. This also
reeks of arbitrary shooting. Indeed, look at the whole police response
and you can see nothing but panic by the cops. 32 shots vs. 1. Shooting
at “flashes” and “shadows” which are coming from themselves. Calls to
“reload” after spraying the home with bullets. It’s a police
free-for-all shooting. Supposedly to uphold good vs. evil. By the
“moral” people vs. “thugs”. This is how a racist and a fascist sees the
killing of Breonna Taylor.
At the end of October, Mattingly decided to sue Kenneth Walker, Breonna Taylor’s boyfriend, on the grounds that Mattingly should be entitled to compensatory damages for medical treatment, trauma, physical pain and mental anguish as a result of the night Ms. Taylor died. Walker is accused of firing a shot into the leg of Mattingly. This suit is nothing more than the act of a sick and dangerous person seeking to hide from his acts of terror, murder, wholesale lying and blame. Who is to blame for invading and shooting innocent people? According to Mattingly, it's one of the victims, Walker! Why does Mattingly have “mental anguish”? Do we even need explain here!
A few final words on the Attorney General Daniel Cameron. It is bad enough that he has found the killer cops, Mattingly and Cosgrove, to be free from any wrongdoing. On this basis he instructed the jury that there was no sense charging them with something, like homicide, that would inevitably be defeated in a court trial. Thus he denied and discouraged evidence that might lead the jurors to look for charges against Mattingly and Cosgrove. Cameron went so far that he did not even ask the jurors if they wanted to consider charges against Mattingly and Cosgrove. At least once a juror’s request for evidence was denied by some AG flunkey on some issue of the time involved to deal with it, to which the juror replied “they have time!”
Cameron made a fine speech to the media where he announced his decision about charges on Mattingly, Cosgrove, and Hankison. He dazzled one and all, proclaiming his faith in examining every bit of evidence, presenting all of it to the jury and, lastly, letting them make up their own mind. For that, indeed, was the most important thing, the jurors in the end are the ones who decide things, aren’t they, and not those in the public who act on the basis of emotion. Only it was the exact opposite in real life. The AG was swayed at every turn by his prejudice to the police, not the objective facts. Doubters may also recall Cameron’s matter-of-fact statements about how he would automatically give more credibility to the testimony of the police and indeed he swept under the rug the will of the jury and the ordinary citizens. We have begun to show this with this article.
This is why the grand jurors are calling on AG Cameron to stop pretending that his views represent theirs and to come clean on how he instructed them. As one juror stated on Oct. 20 “The grand jury didn’t agree that certain actions were justified, nor did it decide the indictment should be the only charges in the Breonna Taylor case. The grand jury was not given an opportunity to deliberate on those charges and deliberated on what was presented to them.” A juror asked prosecutors about additional charges but was dismissed: “there would be none because prosecutors didn’t feel they could make them stick.”
Prosecutors stick up for the police, Trump supporters worship the
police. These prosecutors are out to serve the interests of the wealthy
and degrade the poor. And they single out black people, women and
whoever they think they can get away with easier.
(1) Roberto Ferdman, Belle Cushing and Arni Uncar, "Louisville SWAT Team Told Investigators They Had Concerns About Raid on Breonna Taylor's Apartment", Vice News, September 28, 2020.
(2) Full text. <>
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