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Breonna Taylor grand jury recording to be made public

The move follows the filing of a motion by a grand jury member to have the sealed transcripts and records released "so that the truth may prevail."
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A recording of the grand jury in the Breonna Taylor case will be made public after Kentucky's Attorney General Daniel Cameron agreed to comply with a judge's ruling to release it.

Cameron added that he was concerned that the release planned for Wednesday could hamper the ongoing federal investigation and lead to a "poisoning of the jury pool."

"The grand jury is meant to be a secretive body," Cameron said in a statement released Monday night. "It’s apparent that the public interest in this case isn’t going to allow that to happen."

The move follows the filing of a motion in Louisville, Kentucky, by a grand jury member to have the sealed transcripts and records released "so that the truth may prevail."

The motion, filed in Jefferson County five days after the jury's decision was announced, also asked that the jurors be allowed to speak about the case as a matter of public interest.

Cameron announced last week that the grand jury had chosen not to issue indictments on homicide charges against any of the three officers who fired their guns in the police raid that killed Taylor in March. One former officer, Brett Hankison, faces charges of wanton endangerment, accused of firing bullets that ended up in a neighbor's home.

He pleaded not guilty Monday. During his hearing, the judge ordered that a recording of the grand jury proceedings be entered into the court record.

Kevin Glogower, the attorney who filed the petition, did not immediately respond to phone calls and text messages requesting comment Monday night.

The petition said, "It is patently unjust for the jurors to be subjected to the level of accountability the attorney general campaigned for simply because they received a summons to serve their community at a time that adherence to the summons forced them to be involved in a matter that has caused such a palpable divide between sides."

The decision not to charge the officers with Taylor's death was met with outrage, as Taylor's has become one of many names associated with police violence and racial inequity in recent months. Protests followed in Louisville as people demanded transparency and justice for Taylor.

Taylor was killed after Louisville Metro Police Department officers executed a search warrant at her apartment after midnight. Taylor, an emergency room technician, was in bed with her boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, when officers knocked on her door.

According to Walker's account and a wrongful death lawsuit filed by Taylor's family, the couple did not hear police announce themselves and believed the apartment was being broken into. Walker, a legal gun owner, fired a shot at the front door and struck Sgt. Jonathan Mattingly in the leg, police said.

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Authorities said the officers forcibly entered the apartment after Taylor did not come to the door.

Mattingly stated in his account that he saw Taylor and Walker standing at the end of the hall and returned fire. Cameron said Wednesday that Mattingly fired six shots and that "almost simultaneously" Detective Myles Cosgrove fired 16 times from the doorway.

It had previously been reported that Taylor was shot five times, but Cameron said she was struck six times.

An FBI analysis determined that Cosgrove fired the fatal shot.

Police were executing a warrant to search for drugs or cash from drug trafficking as part of an investigation involving Taylor's ex-boyfriend Jamarcus Glover, a convicted drug dealer. Glover had been using her address to receive packages, according to authorities.

No drugs or money were recovered, according to the search warrant inventory document obtained by NBC News. Taylor had no criminal record.

Cameron said his office's investigation found that officers announced themselves based on one witness account, although other witnesses have said they did not hear police announce themselves that night.

He also said the three officers "had no known involvement in the preceding investigation or obtainment of the search warrant."

"They were called in to duty as extra personnel," Cameron said Wednesday.

Mattingly's attorney, Kent J. Wicker, said the grand jury's decision not to charge his client or Cosgrove "shows that the system worked and that grand jurors recognized and respected the facts of the case."

Civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump, who represented Taylor's family in a wrongful death lawsuit that the city settled for $12 million, called the grand jury process a "sham proceeding that did nothing to give Breonna Taylor a voice."

Crump said on NBC's "TODAY" show Thursday that the wanton endangerment charge "doesn't make sense" and that the indictment was in connection to bullets shot into a white neighbor's apartment, "but not for the bullets going in Breonna Taylor's body."

The family's legal team has also demanded the release of the grand jury transcripts, and it has demanded to know whether Cameron recommended charges for the other officers.

"Nothing seems to say Breonna mattered," Crump said.