Minute by minute: What happened the night Louisville police fatally shot Breonna Taylor

Darcy Costello Tessa Duvall
Louisville Courier Journal

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — In the early morning hours of March 13, Breonna Taylor and her boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, were in bed asleep when they heard a loud banging at the door. 

They called out, asking who was there, but heard no response, their attorneys say.

Minutes later, Taylor, a 26-year-old ER tech and former EMT, lay dead on her hallway floor, shot five times by plainclothes officers who had burst in to execute a "no-knock" search warrant at her home.

What happened that night at Taylor's Springfield Drive apartment in south Louisville has sparked a national debate on the use of force and the shootings of unarmed Black Americans by police. 

Exactly what went down in the moments before Taylor died at 12:48 a.m. March 13 depends on who you listen to — there were no body cameras to record the events now under investigation by police. 

READ:Louisville agrees to $12 million settlement, police reforms in Breonna Taylor lawsuit

Also:Breonna Taylor protest in downtown Louisville draws hundreds. Here's what we know

Police say they entered the apartment when someone shot one of the officers, and they returned fire.

Walker was charged for the attempted murder of a police officer, but Commonwealth's Attorney Tom Wine dismissed those charges on May 22, though he said he could present the case to a grand jury a second time if needed.

Walker's attorney says he acted in self-defense. How was he to know it wasn't an intruder if police never identified themselves? And why was Taylor killed?

Using interviews, court records and witness accounts, The Courier Journal has pieced together the hours and minutes leading to that fatal confrontation.

Here's what know about the final fateful hours that cost Taylor her life.

Five warrants, five houses

On March 12, 12 hours before Taylor died, events were set in motion.

LMPD Detective Joshua Jaynes wrote five affidavits seeking a judge's permission for no-knock searches in a narcotics investigation.

Jefferson Circuit Judge Mary Shaw signed the first two at 12:25 p.m. for a "trap" house — or drug house — in the Russell neighborhood at 2424 Elliott Ave. and an empty house across the street at 2425 Elliott. A warrant for a neighboring vacant house at 2426 Elliott was signed at 12:31.

At 12:35, she signed off on the warrant for 2605 W. Muhammad Ali Blvd., which Jaynes described as another house where "narcotics are being sold and delivered." Police did not execute that warrant.

The last warrant for the investigation that Shaw signed was at 12:37, approving the search of Taylor's home and car 10 miles away from Elliott Avenue at St. Anthony Gardens Apartments.

Taylor was named was on the search warrant, along with Jamarcus Glover and Adrian Walker, who were both named on the four other warrants, meaning police could search them if they were at any of the locations.

The language on all five warrants is similar, describing the criminal history of the suspects and Jaynes' observations. All end by asking for a no-knock entry "due to the nature of how these drug traffickers operate."

Taylor's apartment was included in the search because Jaynes said Glover had been seen getting a package from Taylor's home in January and driving to a "known drug house."

But U.S. postal inspector Tony Gooden, of Louisville, told WDRB News in May that a different agency had asked in January to look into whether Taylor's home was receiving suspicious mail. The office had concluded that the apartment was not, according to Gooden.

LMPD interim chief Robert Schroeder has since placed Jaynes on administrative reassignment, saying questions about "how and why the search warrant was approved" need to be answered.

911 call from Breonna Taylor shooting:'Somebody kicked in the door and shot my girlfriend'

Read more:Louisville police pursued 'no-knock' search warrant in fatal shooting 

A sudden explosion at Breonna Taylor's door

At 12:40 a.m. March 13, as Taylor and Walker were in bed asleep, police gathered outside her apartment.

Despite having secured a "no-knock" warrant, the detectives knocked "multiple times" and announced their presence, LMPD officials claim.

In a March 25 interview with investigators, Sgt. Jonathan Mattingly said police at Taylor's apartment repeatedly knocked and announced their presence. He said he was unsure why the warrant was requested as a no-knock, but he was instructed before going in to knock and announce.

"Our intent was to give her plenty of time to come to the door because they said she was probably there alone," Mattingly said.

Commonwealth's Attorney Tom Wine shared Louisville Metro Police's whiteboard from the night of Breonna Taylor's fatal shooting, as they planned how to execute a series of search warrants, in a Zoom call with reporters on Friday.

But multiple neighbors told Taylor's attorneys that they never heard anyone identify themselves.

As Mattingly knocked, Walker said he and Taylor called out, asking who it was, but got no response. Walker told investigators after the shooting he thought it might have been Taylor's former boyfriend.

Mattingly estimated he banged on the door "six or seven different time periods," which "seems like an eternity when you're up at a doorway."

Related:Calls grow for feds to step in as national anger builds over Taylor shooting

A 'hail' of police bullets riddles apartment

When no one opened the door, officers used a battering ram to force their way in.

Inside, Walker grabbed his gun, "scared to death," as both pulled on clothes and went to answer the door. They left the bedroom and hadn't made it down the hallway before the door "comes off its hinges," he said.

When police entered, Walker fired one shot — which he described as a "warning," because he thought intruders were breaking in — and struck Mattingly in the leg. Mattingly, detective Myles Cosgrove and now-former detective Brett Hankison returned fire.

Taylor was shot five times and died in her hallway. 

By 12:42 a.m., Taylor's neighbors began calling 911 to report shots fired. A minute later, officers on scene called dispatch saying an officer had been shot.

Attorneys for both Taylor's family and Walker say police fired more than 20 rounds into the apartment.

Bullets hit the kitchen, the living room ceiling, the patio door, the bathroom and at least one adjoining apartment, photos from Sam Aguiar, an attorney for Taylor's family, show.

Taylor's sister, Juniyah Palmer, typically stayed in the second bedroom. She wasn't there on March 13, but attorneys for both Taylor and Walker said Palmer could have been killed if she had been home.

"It was incredible that Ms. Taylor was the only one killed," Walker's attorney Rob Eggert wrote. "Bullets went into the upstairs apartment and bullets went into apartment three. Nobody heard police announce their presence."

A civil suit filed against the officers alleged that one officer later identified as Hankison was shooting from outside the home and "could not see anything inside" because the living room window was obscured by curtains and the second bedroom window was obscured by a screen and blinds.

See also:Louisville mayor calls for FBI, US attorney to review shooting investigation

"There was no way that the officers could have had a reasonable line of sight when firing into the home from outside this window," it says.

In Schroeder's letter firing Hankison, he is accused of "blindly" firing 10 rounds into Taylor's apartment and the one next door.

LMPD has not said whose bullets struck Taylor.

She died at 12:48 a.m., according to the Jefferson County Coroner's Office. Photos show blood in the hallway and on a wall with three bullet holes.

An audio recording from the scene illustrates the chaos.

"10-30,10-30! Officer down! 10-30!" an unidentified officer says. "Officer shot on Springfield. Officer shot on Springfield."

It continues: "Officers encountered rifle fire. Officer down!"

The calls go on to request EMS for the officer, and for SWAT to go to the scene. 

"He's conscious," the caller says of Mattingly. "It looks like one in the thigh."

"We're going to put him in the back of our car," a different voice says of taking Mattingly to the hospital. "We don't know where our backup EMS that's on the scene is at."

By 1 a.m., Walker was arrested, charged with the attempted murder of an officer.

ICYMI:Top prosecutor recuses himself in shooting, pursues case against boyfriend

Another warrant at the 'trap house'

Around the same time police entered Taylor's apartment, police officers across town were executing the search warrants at the "trap" houses in the Russell neighborhood.

The exact time the officers raided the three houses on Elliott Avenue has been called into question by Aguiar and his co-counsel.

According to the seized property log for 2424 Elliott Ave., the time of search was 12:40 a.m. March 13. But other documents, including a K-9 search report and an email written by an involved detective, indicate the search may have begun before 12:40 — before officers broke down Taylor's door.

Glover had been previously picked up on drug charges, and he had drug trafficking and possession cases pending against him at the time of the warrants.

Police wrote in an affidavit attached to the warrant that they believed Glover used Taylor's home to receive mail, keep drugs or stash money earned from drug trafficking.

Jaynes, the detective who requested the warrants, wrote in the document that Glover was seen walking into Taylor's apartment in January and leaving with a "suspected USPS package in his right hand," then got into his car and drove to a "known drug house" on Muhammad Ali Boulevard.

Jaynes said he verified through a U.S. postal inspector that Glover had been receiving packages at Taylor's address, though the inspector later rebutted that.

He also reported seeing a white vehicle registered to Taylor parked in front of the Elliott Avenue address — the main place where suspected drug dealing was occurring — on "different occasions."

Glover was arrested at 2424 Elliott Ave. at 2:43 a.m. March 13, his arrest citation shows. The time of his offense was listed as 12:40 a.m.

The arrest warrant for that address listed Glover, in addition to: Adrian Orlandes Walker, Demarius Jaquey Bowman, Anthony J. Taylor II, Dominique Crenshaw and Deonta Levon Glover. Breonna Taylor is not mentioned. 

An attached evidence log includes seized money, marijuana, crack cocaine, yellow pills, codeine, baggies, surveillance cameras, phones, firearms and bills.

The police department obtained another search warrant for the same property five weeks later on April 21.

In it, officers write that after the March 13 raid, police had verified drug dealing had resumed at the property "by the end of March 2020."

Related:Breonna Taylor's lawyer to Louisville police: 'Get your damn story straight'

A suspect or a victim?

In a press conference on the police shooting hours later that same day, Lt. Ted Eidem with LMPD's Public Integrity Unit said officers were "immediately met by gunfire" when they entered Taylor's apartment.

All three officers at the apartment — Mattingly, Hankison and Cosgrove — returned fire, Eidem said.

Eidem named Kenneth Walker as the suspect in custody for shooting Mattingly — who he said underwent surgery and was expected to make a full recovery. Taylor wasn't named.

Police were "still working through what her involvement was on the narcotics investigation," Eidem said.

Walker's name wasn't on either search warrant police executed that night, and he isn't related to Adrian Walker who was named on the warrant.

Kenneth Walker's arrest citation from March 13 says he told police he was the "only person to shoot from inside the apartment."

Officials initially referred to Taylor as a suspect, though she was unarmed and had died. 

In a subsequent search warrant for Taylor's home obtained less than three hours after the shooting, LMPD officers told a judge that narcotics detectives who entered the apartment that night returned gunfire "in the course of protecting themselves and other civilians."

Who was Breonna Taylor? What to know about the EMT shot and killed by police

The wording is an apparent reference to Louisville Metro Police policy, which states the use of deadly force is authorized "in defense of oneself or another when the officer reasonably believes … that the person against whom the force is used poses an immediate threat of death or serious injury to the officer or to another person." 

The policy adds that deadly force, like all uses of force, should not be used unless "other reasonable alternatives have been exhausted." And, if feasible, verbal warnings should be given before it is used. 

It also states that officers firing their weapon "should remain cognizant" of the direction in which it's being discharged and the danger of discharging a firearm while moving.

The statement in the search warrant also incorrectly names Taylor as the "subject" armed with a gun who fired a shot that hit a detective. The detectives returned fire, it says, and "struck the subject unknown number of times." 

"The subject collapsed inside the listed residence and subsequently (was) pronounced dead on scene," the document says.

But by the time Eidem spoke at the news conference, roughly 15 hours after the shooting, he identified Walker as the individual charged with attempted murder of a police officer.

Wine, the commonwealth's attorney, revealed May 22 that Walker had initially said Taylor was the shooter. In an audio clip, Walker told investigators that he was scared and didn't know why he'd said that.

"Police were not trying to disrespect Ms. Taylor in any way," Wine said. "They were acting on the information that was given to them by Mr. Walker."

No drugs were recovered from Taylor's home.

Darcy Costello: dcostello@courier-journal.com; Twitter: @dctello. Tessa Duvall: tduvall@courier-journal.com; Twitter: @tessaduvall.