As we await grand jury transcripts in Breonna Taylor’s case, new revelations keep coming to light. According to reports, Louisville Police Department police officers say they were repeatedly told there were no packages, “suspicious or otherwise” delivered to the home of Breonna Taylor in connection to their drug investigation.
An investigative report from LMPD’s Public Integrity unit countered the initial claims by Detective Joshua Jaynes that said he had “verified through a US Postal Inspector that their drug suspect Jamarcus Glover was receiving packages” at Taylor’s apartment.
On March 12, Jaynes wrote a warrant affidavit with the “verified” information. They presented it to a judge for approval, and after it was signed, it allowed officers to raid Taylor’s home during the early morning of March 13. Unfortunately, as a result, Taylor was shot and killed.
The investigative report, which was obtained on Wednesday by WDRB News, claimed officers asked two members of the Shively Police Department to check with a postal inspector but were told there were no packages delivered to Taylor’s home. This raises issues with the detective’s justification for seeking a warrant that allowed the raid.
During a May 18 interview with LMPD’s department of Public Integrity Unity, Shively police Sgt. Timothy Salyer said that after Taylor’s death—and after he reviewed the warrant affidavit—he questioned LMPD Sgt. Jonathan Mattingly, an officer involved in the actual raid, about the affidavit.
“Sgt. Mattingly stated he told Detective Jaynes there was no package history at that address,” Salyer told investigators, according to a summary of the interview.
The police summary also detailed Mattingly’s contact with Salyer and Detective Mike Kuzma of the Shively department in January, in which Mattingly, at Jaynes’s request, reached out to see about packages going to Taylor’s home. According to Salyer, the request came as a result of his good standing with the Louisville postal inspector.
But, in the summary, Salyer also said the “postal service does not want to work with LMPD any longer” after an incident that occurred a few years back that involved officers and postal workers. The police summary did not elaborate on that incident.
On January 17, Mattingly requested that Salyer and Kuzma look into a package delivered to Taylor’s home on Glover’s behalf. Glover told The Courier-Journal in August that the package contained shoes and clothing.
After his first contact from Mattingly, Salyer informed him that “no packages had been received at the address, and the post office did not receive any packages either,” he told Sgt. Jason Vance and Sgt. Jeremy Ruoff, who conducted the interview. The date of that conversation is not included in the police summary.
Internal investigators then discovered, Salyer was contacted by two other LMPD officers, Detective Mike Nobles, and Detective Kelly Hanna, asking again about packages going to Taylor’s home; the summary said he told them the same information.
On April 10, after Taylor’s death, Salyer received a text message from Jaynes himself, asking about packages to Taylor’s home.
“(Salyer) told Detective Jaynes there were no packages in months delivered to the address, and the location was flagged if any were detected and the Postal Inspector would be notified,” according to the summary. Jaynes also asked Salyer to check and see if Glover was receiving “mail matter,” which Salyer said he would check into.
Nobles also said he was confused by the “conflicting information on the affidavit as well.”
In June, Jaynes was reassigned amid questions about how and why the warrant was approved. People are outraged over the fact that Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron himself admitted that his office did not look into the circumstances of how police applied for the warrant. Federal authorities are now investigating that aspect of Taylor’s death.
A U.S. postal inspector has come forward to say that Metro police didn’t use his office to verify packages or mailing to Glover at Taylor’s apartment. Apparently, the requests to investigate suspicious mail to Taylor’s home came from a different law enforcement agency in January. After looking into the request, Tony Gooden said the local office found that it wasn’t.
“There’s no packages of interest going there,” Gooden told WDRB in May.
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