The FBI arrested Joshua Jaynes, the former Louisville Metro Police detective who was first reassigned to administrative duty and later fired for lying on the search warrant connected to the fatal raid at Breonna Taylor’s Louisville, Kentucky home in March 2020. Three others were also arrested, including Brett Hankison, the only officer to face state charges in the case (he was later acquitted), as Courier Journal reports.
Jaynes was taken into custody on Thursday and faces federal charges. Former detective Hankison and two additional LMPD — Kelly Hanna Goodlett and Kyle Meany — are also facing federal charges.
On Thursday, Attorney General Merrick Garland held a press conference announcing the charges. Jaynes, Goodlett, and Meany were charged with conspiracy for violating Taylor’s Fourth Amendment Rights by submitting a false affidavit to search Taylor’s home when they conspired to create a “false cover story in an attempt to escape responsibility for their roles in preparing the warrant affidavit that contained false information,” per CNN. On Thursday, Hankison was charged with two counts of deprivation of civil rights.
Police fatally shot Taylor, a 26-year-old emergency room technician, and Black woman, while she was asleep in bed during the March 13, 2020 raid. Her killing sparked nationwide protests.
Jaynes was fired in January 2021 for what then-interim Chief Yvette Gentry found to be an untruthful statement in his sworn affidavit for the warrant search of Taylor’s apartment. In the affidavit, he wrote that he had verified via a U.S. Postal Inspector that Jamarcus Glover, a suspected drug dealer, was using Taylor’s apartment to have drugs delivered. No drugs were found in her home. However, Jaynes’ information came from another officer, Jonathan Mattingly; neither had verification from the postal inspector.
Garland said the Department of Justice alleges that Jaynes, Meany, and Goodlett, who were involved with the search warrant, sought the warrant for Taylor’s home “knowing that the officers lacked probable cause for the search,” Garland said. He added the officers knew the affidavit in support of the warrant “contained false and misleading information and that it omitted material information.”
Additionally, Garland said Jaynes and Goodlett met in May 2020 and “conspired to knowingly falsify an investigative document” and “conspired to mislead federal, state and local authorities” who were investigating the shooting.
Hankison, along with another officer Myles Cosgrove — both of whom fired their weapons during the raid — were fired for their roles in Taylor’s death. Cosgrove and Mattingly did not face any state charges; Mattingly later resigned. “The officers who ultimately carried out the search [of Taylor’s apartment] were not involved in the drafting of the warrant and were unaware of the false and misleading statements they contained,” Garland said on Thursday.
Earlier this year, Hankison was found not guilty in state court on three counts of first-degree wanton endangerment.