Breonna Taylor

Update: 6:24 p.m.

The Kentucky Senate unanimously passed Senate Bill 4, creating new limits on no-knock search warrants after a nearly two-hour discussion Tuesday evening.

During the nearly two-hour debate, lawmakers praised the bipartisan effort, but Louisville Democratic Sen. Gerald Neal said passing the bill wasn’t enough

“The problem we face goes deeper than no-knocks,” Neal said.

“We must have trust between the police and our communities. We have to go beyond what we’re doing here, which I support. We have the power, ability, intelligence and the moral standing to deal with this in a rational way,” Neal said.

The Republican president of the Kentucky Senate filed a bill that would restrict “no-knock” search warrants, the type of warrant used in the Louisville police raid that killed Breonna Taylor last year.

Senate Bill 4 would still allow no-knock warrants to be issued in cases where someone allegedly committed a violent crime, or if giving prior notice would endanger someone’s life or result in the loss of evidence related to a violent crime.

Senate President Robert Stivers, a Republican from Manchester, said the Breonna Taylor raid wouldn’t have happened under his proposal.

“You’re not going to have a situation that occurred here that you’re going to create a no-knock search warrant to search for papers, stolen items, drugs, anything like that,” Stivers said.

Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron is criticizing three grand jurors from the Breonna Taylor case for anonymously filing an impeachment petition against him.

In a response to the petition filed with the Kentucky House of Representatives on Friday, Cameron’s office called the effort a “mockery of the solemn constitutional process of impeachment” and defended his handling of Taylor’s case.

Three unnamed grand jurors from the case filed the petition to impeach Cameron last week, saying the attorney general misled the public about evidence he presented and charges he recommended against officers involved in the raid on Taylor’s apartment.

In Cameron’s official reply, Deputy Attorney General Barry Dunn dismissed the petition as a “sign of the times,” where the country has experienced “a once-in-a-century pandemic, political vitriol on all sides, cancel culture, mass unemployment, cities burning, spiking crime, a continued assault on the rule of law, and simply put, difficult circumstances all around.”

The ACLU of Kentucky has unveiled their 2021 legislative priorities, including a statewide ban on no-knock warrants, protecting reproductive rights and several measures seeking to reform the criminal justice system.

The civil rights organization’s wish list includes bills sponsored by both Republicans and Democrats, including bipartisan efforts to reform the juvenile justice system, raise the threshold for felony theft and paid family leave for state workers.

Any successful legislation proposed in Kentucky requires Republican buy-in, since the party currently controls 75% of seats in the state legislature.

One of the group’s main efforts is Breonna’s Law for Kentucky, a bill that would ban most no-knock warrants across the state, require body cameras when officers are executing a warrant, and mandate interviews and drug testing of police within two hours of firing their weapons.

Three grand jurors from the Breonna Taylor case have filed an impeachment petition against Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron, alleging he misled the public about the case and misrepresented the grand jury’s actions.

They also argue he misused public funds to join a multi-state lawsuit against Pennsylvania’s election results and supported unlawful actions as a member of the National Association of Attorneys General’s executive committee, which funded robocalls urging people to march to the U.S. Capitol on January 6.

The grand jurors have remained anonymous, though the petition was filed by Louisville attorney Kevin Glogower on their behalf.

Attorney General Daniel Cameron has created a task force to review Kentucky’s search warrant policies in the wake of the Breonna Taylor shooting.

The announcement comes more than 10 months after Louisville police shot and killed Taylor in her apartment while executing a search warrant related to a drug investigation. No drugs or cash were found at the apartment.

Cameron said the task force fulfills a promise he made “to develop best practices for the effective and safe execution of search warrants.”

“We’ve assembled a group representing every aspect of the search warrant process to conduct a top to bottom review and provide recommendations. Our goal is to establish Kentucky as a national model for how search warrants should be pursued and executed,” Cameron said in a statement.

Kentucky lawmakers will return to Frankfort on Tuesday for an unusual legislative session in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic.

Unlike most years when committee rooms and galleries can be packed with advocates, lobbyists and other interested parties, access to the Capitol will be limited, though many proceedings can still be accessed on KET’s website.

Legislators will be faced with weighty issues: they’ll need to pass a one-year budget amid uncertainties about how much money the state will bring in, respond to the coronavirus pandemic and Republican leaders say they want to strip Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear of his power to respond to the pandemic.

Beshear has said he wants to find new revenue sources for the state during the economic crisis—including initiatives like sports betting and medical marijuana, which have gotten limited support in previous years.

Louisville police detective Joshua Jaynes, who obtained the search warrant for Breonna Taylor’s apartment, admitted some language is “incorrect” in the affidavit for that search warrant, according to a filing submitted Friday.

In the new document filed in a civil case filed by Taylor’s boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, Jaynes’ lawyer wrote that his client admits that it wasn’t correct to say the United States Postal Inspector confirmed certain packages were going to Taylor’s home. He also said the inclusion of that statement as fact was no more than an “honest mistake.”

Louisville Metro Police Department released documents related to the police’s internal investigation in October that show Jaynes admitted the same to police investigators earlier this year.

As the days get shorter and colder, organizers of Louisville’s racial justice movement are readying for the next phase of social activism in the city, and part of those preparations include finding a new home for the Breonna Taylor memorial in downtown’s Jefferson Square Park.

The movement needs to keep going, but it needs “to be realistic with the weather and the conditions,” Kentucky Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression co-chair Shameka Parrish-Wright said at a press conference Sunday. 

“With the permission of Ms. Tamika Palmer, [Taylor’s mother], and with Roots 101, we have had an agreement that Breonna’s memorial will live there,” Parrish-Wright said.

The Louisville Metro Police officer who was shot during the March 13 raid that left Breonna Taylor dead, has filed a countersuit against Taylor’s boyfriend for battery, assault and emotional distress.

Taylor’s boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, allegedly shot Sgt. Jon Mattingly in the leg while Mattingly and other officers served a middle-of-the-night search warrant at Taylor’s apartment. Walker has said he believed the officers were intruders.

But in this complaint filed Thursday, Mattingly alleges that Walker “willingly or maliciously” fired at police officers.

Two anonymous grand jurors in the Breonna Taylor investigation say prosecutors denied them evidence they requested, dismissed their questions, created confusion and declined requests to look into additional charges during the proceedings.

The grand jurors, who are using the nicknames Grand Juror 1 and Grand Juror 2, said they heard about 40 cases over the month of September. In most cases, the prosecutor would present and explain the recommended charges first, then walk the grand jury through evidence that supported their recommendation. But the Breonna Taylor case was different, both jurors said in a call with reporters Wednesday.

Two of the grand jurors who heard the Breonna Taylor case are speaking out against Attorney General Daniel Cameron’s handling of the investigation and the actions of Louisville Metro Police officers who carried out the operation that led to her death.

In an appearance on CBS This Morning with Gayle King, the two unnamed jurors and attorney Kevin Glogower said there were several inconsistencies between Cameron’s public characterization of the proceedings and the level of involvement from grand jurors.

Juror 2 said the only charge presented to the grand jury was wanton endangerment for Brett Hankison, but no charges related to the shooting death of Taylor or against the other officers were on the table.