WASHINGTON – A former Louisville detective pleaded guilty yesterday to providing false information to obtain a search warrant for Breonna Taylor’s home that led to a 2020 raid in which the Black woman was fatally shot.
The deaths of Taylor and George Floyd, a Black man who was murdered by a white police officer in Minneapolis the same year, became the focus of a wave of protests in the United States and beyond against racial injustice and police brutality.
Kelly Goodlett, the former detective, admitted to conspiring with another ex-detective to “falsify a warrant affidavit for Breonna Taylor’s home” and to making “false statements to cover up the false affidavit,” according to the plea agreement.
She faces up to five years in prison, a fine of $250,000 and three years of supervised release, the document says.
Goodlett and two other officers were facing federal charges for falsifying the warrant, while a fourth was charged with using excessive force by opening fire during the raid, which was part of a drug trafficking case against Taylor’s ex-boyfriend.
The guilty plea sets the stage for Goodlett to be a key witness for the prosecution.
The 26-year-old Taylor and her boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, were sleeping in her apartment around midnight on March 13, 2020, when they heard a noise at the door.
Walker, believing it was a break-in, fired his gun, wounding one police officer.
Police, who had obtained a controversial no-knock warrant to make a drug arrest, fired more than 30 shots back, mortally wounding Taylor.
Walker said police battered down the door unannounced, while the officers insisted they had identified themselves.
The city of Louisville, the largest in Kentucky, settled a wrongful death suit with Taylor’s family for $12 million in September 2020. – AFP, August 24, 2022
