The Kentucky attorney general is seeking a one-week delay in the release of the grand jury recordings in the Breonna Taylor case to protect the interest of witnesses, particularly private citizens named in them, according to a report.
In the motion filed in court Tuesday, AG Daniel Cameron’s office wants to “redact personal identifiers of any named person, and to redact both names and personal identifiers of any private citizen,” the Courier-Journal reported.
Attorneys for former Louisville Detective Brett Hankison — the only officer charged in the death of the 26-year-old EMT during the botched raid — agreed with the delay, according to Cameron’s office.
His spokeswoman Elizabeth Kuhn told the paper Wednesday morning that the audio recording is 20 hours long and that the office filed the motion to request more time “to redact personally identifiable information of witnesses, including addresses and phone numbers.”
She said the judge is expected to rule on the motion later Wednesday.
Hankison is charged with wanton endangerment for shooting through Taylor’s window during the March 13 raid, with the bullets going into an occupied neighboring apartment.
Hankison, Sgt. Jon Mattingly and Detective Myles Cosgrove burst into Taylor’s apartment with a narcotics warrant and exchanged gunfire with her boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, but she was fatally struck.
On Monday, an unidentified juror filed a court motion seeking the release of the grand jury materials so “the truth may prevail.”
The motion accused Cameron of using the grand jurors “as a shield to deflect accountability and responsibility” for his decisions.
The AG said the grand jury agreed the officers fired in self-defense after Walker fired at them and noted that “the only charge recommended (to the grand jury) was wanton endangerment.”
Cameron said he would comply with the release of the grand jury recording, but that he was still concerned it could compromise the federal probe and could taint the jury pool.
Meanwhile, the attorney general told WDRB News that his office did not give the grand jury the option to consider murder or even lesser charges against Mattingly and Cosgrove in Taylor’s death, saying it was “not appropriate.”
“They’re an independent body. If they wanted to make an assessment about different charges, they could have done that,” he told the news outlet. “But our recommendation was that Mattingly and Cosgrove were justified in their acts and their conduct.”