Louisville police Sgt. Jonathan Mattingly confirms police considered Taylor’s home a “soft target” with no animals or children and that they anticipated “no threat.” That’s why, he says, they knocked. He says he knew few other details.
Mattingly tells interviewers that an officer staking out Taylor’s house told him Taylor was home alone watching television. A blue light flickered in the bedroom window as the team approached in plainclothes and tactical vests, says Mattingly.
His team clustered in the breezeway outside the apartment. He recounts that they knocked twice, then started knocking again and yelled “Police, search warrant!” The knocking lasted 45 seconds, Mattingly says, enough time for “the average person, or even a disabled person” to answer. Then the team rammed the door.
In his interview, Kenneth Walker tells investigators he and Taylor were dozing in front of a movie in the bedroom when they heard loud banging. They shouted “Who is it?” he says, but got “No answer. No response. No anything.”
They scrambled to dress and Walker grabbed his licensed gun, he says. They were standing in the hallway when the door opened in an “explosion.”
Walker maintains he could not see who was breaking in, saying he fired one low “warning” shot because he thought it was an intruder.
Mattingly says he got all the way into the house and saw Walker pointing the gun. He heard Walker’s shot and returned fire immediately. Mattingly had been hit in the leg, and would later learn the bullet had punctured his femoral artery. Walker did not fire his weapon again.
Police say they fired at least 16 rounds that night. Walker’s attorney said police shot at least 22. At least 10 came from Sgt. Brett Hankison, who has since been fired for “wantonly and blindly” firing into the apartment, according to his termination letter.
Bullets pierced walls in a bedroom, the living room, bathroom and kitchen. Some flew into the apartment next door, where a young pregnant mother lives with her partner and child, shattering their patio door.
Eight shots struck Breonna Taylor.
Sgt. Vance asks Mattingly if he immediately dropped to the ground after Walker shot him in the leg. Mattingly says no — he fired four times at Walker, backed out of the apartment, fired twice more, then “got out of the game,” he says.
Taped interviews shed light on police probe of Breonna Taylor shooting
Mattingly was among four officers reassigned after the shooting. Only one has been fired: Officer Brett Hankison.
Hankison was “a little bit worked up” that night, Mattingly says in the taped interview, arguing with and pointing his gun at a neighbor who was objecting as police banged on Taylor’s door. “I remember looking at Brett saying, ‘Brett, relax,’” Mattingly says. “‘That's not your focus.’’’
In the firefight, Hankison shot 10 times through a curtained patio and window, bullets flying into neighboring apartments. His
termination letter says Hankison showed “extreme indifference to the value of human life” and violated the rules against using deadly force.
Mattingly tells investigators he never saw other officers shoot — but after he had exited the apartment, gotten through the breezeway and stumbled to the curb, he says he heard gunfire.
Neighbors who called 911 that night described hearing “reload” and a second round of gunfire. Mattingly’s statement appears to corroborate that there were two separate rounds of shots. Attorneys for Taylor’s family claim in court papers that Hankison was the one who yelled “reload.”
Hankison's attorney declined to comment.
