She was killed during a no-knock raid on her home in March
Breonna Taylor's mother Tamika Palmer (center) addresses the media over the speed of the investigation of her daughter's death as attorney Benjamin Crump (left) and co-counsel Lonita Baker (right) look on outside Louisville City Hall in Louisville, Kentucky. The attorneys and family are upset with the lack of action by city officials during the 150 days since Breonna Taylor was fatally shot by Louisville Metro Police officers. (Photo by John Sommers II/Getty Images)
Editor’s note: The Courier Journal has exhaustively covered all aspects of the fatal March 13 shooting of Breonna Taylor at the hands of Louisville Metro Police Department officers. As the investigation of their conduct continues, this story examines documents and other evidence we obtained that helps explain why LMPD pursued the no-knock search warrant and why they were there that night. It does not justify the shooting but provides more insight into this highly controversial case that has captured the nation’s interest. An earlier version of this story published prematurely Tuesday morning before final edits were made. We apologize for that misstep.
An internal report written by Louisville Metro Police after officers fatally shotBreonna Taylor on March 13 sheds more light on the reasons why they chose to forcibly enter her South End apartment the night she was killed.
It provides no explanations or evidence aimed at justifying the shooting that has sparked three months of protests in Louisville and national outrage, with critics accusing police of breaking into the home of an unarmed Black woman for no legitimate reason and killing her.
But the 39-page report and corroborating evidence do show that Taylor had more extensive ties than previously made public with an accused drug trafficker who was at the center of a larger narcotics investigation in Louisville. It is not known if details included in the report were presented to the judge who signed the controversial "no-knock" warrant for Taylor's apartment.
The findings of the report, corroborated by jail phone recordings and other documents obtained by The Courier Journal, detail multiple links between Taylor and Jamarcus Glover of Louisville, a main target in a drug probe that prompted police to request the search warrant for Taylor’s apartment.
Plainclothes officers that night battered in her door, searching for drugs and illicit cash. None were found.
Glover was arrested the same night as Taylor’s shooting. He was picked up at an alleged drug house 10 miles to the north in Louisville’s West End. He was released on bail but is now a fugitive after failing to post a new bail set at $50,000 when he was charged again last month.
"Breonna Taylor did not deserve to die no matter what her role in all this,” said a Jefferson County law enforcement official who asked not to be identified because Kentucky's attorney general is still deciding whether the officers who shot Taylor should be prosecuted.
The Louisville Metropolitan Police Department released a report this week providing more details about Breonna Taylor's alleged connections to drug trafficking that led police to obtain and execute a no-knock search warrant at her home in March, the Courier Journal reported.
Taylor was shot eight times and killed by police who broke into her home in the middle of the night on March 13. Police shot back after Taylor's boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, fired a shot at them when they entered the apartment. No drugs or money were found at the apartment.
What's in the report?
Recorded calls about bail money. During a call from jail on March 12, Jamarcus Glover (the main target in the drug probe) called a friend and told her that Taylor was keeping $8,000 of his money and that she had been "handling all of my money." Glover and Taylor had dated a couple of years prior.
In January, in another call from jail, Glover called Taylor to ask her to arrange for obtaining bail money from a mutual associate.
Taylor posted bail for Glover twice in 2017, and there were 27 calls from Glover to Taylor while he was in jail at various points from January 2016 through January 2020.
Glover and Taylor seen leaving alleged drug house together. Police reportedly observed Taylor and Glover visiting a known drug house together on Feb. 13.
According to the report, in a call from jail the the same day Taylor was killed, Glover expressed confusion to an associate named Adrian Walker about why the police searched Taylor's apartment when their only connection was the bail money, and Walker responded that it was probably because of the photos of them going to the drug house.
The mayor criticizes the report
Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer criticized the Courier Journal's publication of the information from LMPD's report as "reckless" in a statement:
Breonna Taylor's death was a tragedy. Period. Justice, peace and healing are what is needed for her, for her family and for our community. Today a news story was released that includes information related to the Breonna Taylor case, despite the fact that the Attorney General and FBI have insisted that the investigation remain confidential for the integrity of the judicial process as a whole. In addition, attorneys for Breonna's family, the county attorney, and the civil attorneys for the officers are under a protective order that does not permit them to disclose evidence in this case. It is deeply reckless for this information, which presents only a small fraction of the entire investigation, to be shared with the media while the criminal process remains ongoing. It would be unjust to draw conclusions about this case before the investigation is complete and the full truth comes out. And, efforts to sway opinion and impact the investigation by releasing select information are wrong and divisive, at a time when our city needs unity more than ever before.
Keep these in mind as you contemplate the direction of the American government over the past 50 years and especially since the Obama election.
The Goals of Communism
(as read into the congressional record January 10, 1963, from "The Naked Communist" by Cleon Skousen)
1. U.S. acceptance of coexistence as the only alternative to atomic war.
2. U.S. willingness to capitulate in preference to engaging in atomic war.
3. Develop the illusion that total disarmament of the United States would be a demonstration of moral strength.
4. Permit free trade between all nations regardless of Communist affiliation and regardless of whether or not items could be used for war.
5. Extension of long-term loans to Russia and Soviet satellites.
6. Provide American aid to all nations regardless of Communist domination.
7. Grant recognition of Red China. Admission of Red China to the U.N.
8. Set up East and West Germany as separate states in spite of Khrushchev's promise in 1955 to settle the German question by free elections under supervision of the U.N.
9. Prolong the conferences to ban atomic tests because the United States has agreed to suspend tests as long as negotiations are in progress.
10. Allow all Soviet satellites individual representation in the U.N.
11. Promote the U.N. as the only hope for mankind. If its charter is rewritten, demand that it be set up as a one-world government with its own independent armed forces. (Some Communist leaders believe the world can be taken over as easily by the U.N. as by Moscow. Sometimes these two centers compete with each other as they are now doing in the Congo.)
12. Resist any attempt to outlaw the Communist Party.
13. Do away with all loyalty oaths.
14. Continue giving Russia access to the U.S. Patent Office.
15. Capture one or both of the political parties in the United States.
16. Use technical decisions of the courts to weaken basic American institutions by claiming their activities violate civil rights.
17. Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for socialism and current Communist propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Get control of teachers' associations. Put the party line in textbooks.
18. Gain control of all student newspapers.
19. Use student riots to foment public protests against programs or organizations which are under Communist attack.
20. Infiltrate the press. Get control of book-review assignments, editorial writing, policymaking positions.
21. Gain control of key positions in radio, TV, and motion pictures.
22. Continue discrediting American culture by degrading all forms of artistic expression. An American Communist cell was told to "eliminate all good sculpture from parks and buildings, substitute shapeless, awkward and meaningless forms."
23. Control art critics and directors of art museums. "Our plan is to promote ugliness, repulsive, meaningless art."
24. Eliminate all laws governing obscenity by calling them "censorship" and a violation of free speech and free press.
25. Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting pornography and obscenity in books, magazines, motion pictures, radio, and TV.
26. Present homosexuality, degeneracy and promiscuity as "normal, natural, healthy."
27. Infiltrate the churches and replace revealed religion with "social" religion. Discredit the Bible and emphasize the need for intellectual maturity which does not need a "religious crutch."
28. Eliminate prayer or any phase of religious expression in the schools on the ground that it violates the principle of "separation of church and state."
29. Discredit the American Constitution by calling it inadequate, old-fashioned, out of step with modern needs, a hindrance to cooperation between nations on a worldwide basis.
30. Discredit the American Founding Fathers. Present them as selfish aristocrats who had no concern for the "common man."
31. Belittle all forms of American culture and discourage the teaching of American history on the ground that it was only a minor part of the "big picture." Give more emphasis to Russian history since the Communists took over.
32. Support any socialist movement to give centralized control over any part of the culture--education, social agencies, welfare programs, mental health clinics, etc.
33. Eliminate all laws or procedures which interfere with the operation of the Communist apparatus.
34. Eliminate the House Committee on Un-American Activities.
35. Discredit and eventually dismantle the FBI.
36. Infiltrate and gain control of more unions.
37. Infiltrate and gain control of big business.
38. Transfer some of the powers of arrest from the police to social agencies. Treat all behavioral problems as psychiatric disorders which no one but psychiatrists can understand.
39. Dominate the psychiatric profession and use mental health laws as a means of gaining coercive control over those who oppose Communist goals.
40. Discredit the family as an institution. Encourage promiscuity and easy divorce.
41. Emphasize the need to raise children away from the negative influence of parents. Attribute prejudices, mental blocks and retarding of children to suppressive influence of parents.
42. Create the impression that violence and insurrection are legitimate aspects of the American tradition; that students and special-interest groups should rise up and use united force to solve economic, political or social problems.
43. Overthrow all colonial governments before native populations are ready for self-government.
44. Internationalize the Panama Canal.
45. Repeal the Connally reservation so the United States cannot prevent the World Court from seizing jurisdiction over nations and individuals alike.
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