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Former Louisville Cop Pleads Guilty To Falsifying Information That Led To Breonna Taylor’s Death…

These are some of the rea­sons that the Republicans have hat­ed the Federal Government in our life­time. Arguably, since Ronald Reagan was pres­i­dent, the Federal Government was seen as an imped­i­ment to what Republicans have want­ed to do to Black & Brown com­mu­ni­ties. It is exact­ly why they are opposed to the FBI and oth­er Federal Agencies that are sworn to uphold the con­sti­tu­tion. Although not per­fect itself, the Federal Bureau of Investigations and the Department of Justice, on a broad­er scale, has been cen­tral to thwart­ing the plans of Republicans to abuse the con­sti­tu­tion­al rights of black and brown Americans.
The present attacks on the FBI are not occur­ring in a vac­u­um; they are well-orches­trat­ed attacks designed to weak­en and dimin­ish the author­i­ty of Main Justice and agen­cies like the FBI.
Conducting real inves­ti­ga­tions and hold­ing cor­rupt, mur­der­ous local police account­able is not some­thing Republicans care about or want.
The case below is a case study of the way local cor­rupt offi­cials who are sworn to uphold the con­sti­tu­tion and the rights of cit­i­zens col­lude to pro­tect dirty cor­rupt cops even when their actions lead to the unlaw­ful death of citizens.
You sim­ply can­not make this lev­el of cor­rup­tion up.
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Daniel Cameron, the Attorney General pre­sent­ed only a small part of the evi­dence to a grand jury.

By Brendan O’Brien

(Reuters) ‑A for­mer Louisville detec­tive plead­ed guilty in fed­er­al court on Tuesday to help­ing fal­si­fy a search war­rant that led to the killing of Breonna Taylor, a Black woman whose death fueled a wave of protests over police vio­lence against peo­ple of color.

The for­mer offi­cer, Kelly Goodlett, entered her plea before U.S. District Court Judge Rebecca Grady Jennings in a fed­er­al court in Louisville, Kentucky, the New York Times reported.

Goodlett plead­ed guilty to one count of con­spir­a­cy, the news­pa­per report­ed, becom­ing the first offi­cer to be held crim­i­nal­ly respon­si­ble for the botched raid. Goodlett was accused of con­spir­ing with anoth­er detec­tive to fal­si­fy the war­rant that led to the raid and cov­er­ing up the fal­si­fi­ca­tion.

Prosecutors and an attor­ney for Goodlett were not imme­di­ate­ly avail­able for comment.

Goodlett was one of four for­mer Louisville Metropolitan Police Department detec­tives charged by the U.S. Justice Department on Aug. 4 for their involve­ment in the 2020 raid that killed Taylor in her home.

The charges rep­re­sent­ed the Justice Department’s lat­est attempt to crack down on abus­es and racial dis­par­i­ties in polic­ing, fol­low­ing a series of high-pro­file police killings of Black Americans across the country.

The killing of Taylor, along with oth­er 2020 killings of George Floyd in Minneapolis and Ahmaud Arbery in Georgia, among oth­ers, sparked out­rage and gal­va­nized protests that peaked in inten­si­ty dur­ing that summer.

Taylor, a 26-year-old emer­gency med­ical tech­ni­cian, was asleep with her boyfriend on March 13, 2020 when police con­duct­ed a no-knock raid and burst into her apart­ment. Taylor’s boyfriend fired once at what he said he believed were intrud­ers. Three police offi­cers respond­ed with 32 shots, six of which struck Taylor, killing her.

Goodlett and a fel­low for­mer offi­cer, Joshua Jaynes, met days after the shoot­ing in a garage where they agreed on a false sto­ry to cov­er for the false evi­dence they had sub­mit­ted to jus­ti­fy the botched raid, pros­e­cu­tors say.

Federal pros­e­cu­tors also charged Jaynes and cur­rent Sergeant Kyle Meany with civ­il rights vio­la­tions and obstruc­tion of jus­tice for using false infor­ma­tion to obtain the search war­rant. A fourth offi­cer, for­mer Detective Brett Hankison, was charged with civ­il rights vio­la­tions for alleged­ly using exces­sive force.

In March, a jury acquit­ted Hankison on a charge of wan­ton endan­ger­ment. A grand jury ear­li­er cleared the oth­er two white offi­cers who shot Taylor but charged Hankison for endan­ger­ing neigh­bors in the adja­cent apart­ment.

A grand juror on the case lat­er said Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron only pre­sent­ed the wan­ton endan­ger­ment charges against Hankison to the grand jury.