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A grand jury in the U.S. city of Louisville, Kentucky, on Wednesday charged a former police officer with wanton endangerment linked to the shooting death of a Black woman, Breonna Taylor, in a bungled drug raid in March.
The grand jury decided that two other officers were justified in firing their weapons and cleared them of wrongdoing.
Brett Hankison, the lone officer charged in the case, had already been fired from the city police department after an investigation showed he fired 10 shots into Taylor's apartment through a sliding glass door covered with blinds, violating police rules that officers should have a clear line of sight before firing their weapons.
The grand jury charged Hankison with three counts of wanton endangerment, concluding the shots he fired went through a wall into a neighboring apartment and endangered three people living there. If convicted, he faces up to five years in prison.
Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron, who oversaw the grand jury's consideration of the case, said the other two officers involved in the raid - Jonathan Mattingly and Myles Cosgrove - "were justified in their use of force" after Taylor's boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, fired at them first when they entered the apartment, thinking they were intruders.
The officers had authorization for a "no-knock" raid, but Cameron said a resident in Taylor's apartment building heard the police officers announce their presence before entering Taylor's apartment, even though Walker told police he did not hear it.
Fatal bullet
Cameron said Walker acknowledged firing the first shot, hitting Mattingly in the leg. Mattingly and Cosgrove fired numerous shots in return. Cameron said ballistics tests showed one of the shots fired by Cosgrove killed Taylor, 26, a medical technician.
"The decision before my office is not to decide if the loss of Breonna Taylor's life was a tragedy - the answer to that question is unequivocally yes," Cameron said.
He later added, "I know that not everyone will be satisfied. Our job is to present the facts to the grand jury, and the grand jury then applies the facts. If we simply act on outrage, there is no justice. Mob justice is not justice. Justice sought by violence is not justice. It just becomes revenge."
The killing of Taylor became part of this summer's national reckoning on race relations in the United States and police treatment of minorities. Street demonstrations broke out in dozens of cities in May after the death of George Floyd, a Black man who died in police custody in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
The Taylor case became as prominent as Floyd's, with celebrities and protesters alike calling for charges to be filed against all three police officers linked to her death.
Marchers peacefully protested the grand jury's decision in Louisville, with some saying the charges against a single officer were not sufficient.
Taylor family attorney Ben Crump said, "While not fully what we wanted, this brings us closer" to justice for Taylor.
But in a second tweet, Crump said the fact that no one was charged directly with Taylor's death was "outrageous and offensive."
In advance of the grand jury's action, Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer declared a state of emergency Tuesday because of the potential for civil unrest.
Interim Police Chief Robert Schroeder told reporters that police were erecting barricades around downtown Louisville this week and limiting vehicle traffic in the area. He also canceled all vacations for police officers until further notice.
The windows of several downtown buildings were boarded up, and the federal courthouse and other federal government buildings have been closed for the week.
Louisville recently agreed to pay $12 million to Taylor's family to settle a lawsuit it brought against the city for the manner in which the raid was carried out.