As a federal judge weighs the Department of Justice’s request to dismiss charges against two former police officers whose actions are tied to the March 13, 2020, raid that killed Breonna Taylor, her mother has criticized the DOJ’s move and called for those officers to be held “accountable.”
“She was killed because of their lies and negligence, and somebody should be held accountable for that,” Taylor’s mother Tamika Palmer said in a Tuesday interview with ABC News Live Prime anchor Linsey Davis.
The Justice Department asked a federal court in a filing on Friday to drop charges against Joshua Jaynes and Kyle Meany — two former Louisville police officers who were charged in 2022 with providing false information on a search warrant that led to the fatal 2020 police raid at Taylor’s apartment. They were also charged with civil rights violations.
“We are elated with this development,” Travis Lock, an attorney for Jaynes, told ABC News on Saturday.
Meany’s attorney Michael Denbow told ABC News on Tuesday that his client is “incredibly grateful” for the DOJ’s request to dismiss the charges and is “looking forward to putting this matter behind him and moving forward with his life.”
In this screen grab taken from a video, Tamika Palmer, Breonna Taylor’s mother, speaks during a press conference after meeting with Department of Justice officials, March 14, 2022.
ABC News
Asked about the statements from the officer’s attorneys, Palmer said, “Breonna doesn’t get to come back. She doesn’t get to put it behind her,” adding that for her, “every day” has been March 13 when her daughter was killed.
“There’s no putting it behind me,” she said.
Federal prosecutors alleged that Jaynes and Meany provided false information on the search warrant that allowed plainclothes Louisville police officers to enter Taylor’s Louisville home to serve a no-knock drug warrant as they searched for a former boyfriend of Taylor’s who was not present at the home.
Officers broke down the door to Taylor’s apartment, and her then-current boyfriend Kenneth Walker, who thought someone was breaking into the home, fired one shot with a handgun, striking an officer in the leg. Three other officers returned fire, shooting 32 bullets into the apartment.
“The Government undertook a further review of this matter,” the DOJ said in the Friday filing. “Based on that review, and in the exercise of its discretion, the Government has determined that this case should be dismissed in the interest of justice.”
Tamika Palmer said her daughter, Breonna Taylor, was “full of life” before she was killed when Louisville, Kentucky, police carried out a no-knock search warrant at Taylor’s apartment.
ABC News
Palmer, who was joined by her attorney Lonita Baker for the interview on Tuesday, said she was “confused” and “mad” after learning about the DOJ’s request to dismiss the charges.
“Breonna did nothing wrong, and to say that it’s OK to lie and tell whatever story you want to break down someone’s door is unacceptable,” she said.
Asked about Palmer’s comments, a spokesperson for the DOJ told ABC News in a statement on Tuesday that the charges against the officers represented “inappropriate, weaponized federal overreach.”
“Neither of these officers was present during the shooting, and a district court has already repeatedly dismissed the most serious charges as completely unsupportable,” the spokesperson said. “These cases represented the kind of inappropriate, weaponized federal overreach that this Department of Justice no longer tolerates.”
Baker said that if charges are dropped against the officers, Taylor’s family is calling on the state to prosecute them. The state of Kentucky previously declined to file charges against Jaynes and Meany.
“They should be held accountable, and it’s very disappointing and disingenuous for the Department of Justice to dismiss these charges,” Baker said.
The DOJ’s filing on Friday came after a federal judge had twice struck down felony charges against the Jaynes and Meany, reducing them to misdemeanors, most recently in 2025.
Whether the remaining charges are ultimately dropped is up to a federal judge, who has yet to issue a ruling.
ABC News reached out to attorneys for Jaynes and Meany for further comment.
A former Louisville officer, Brett Hankison, was convicted of a civil rights offense in connection with Taylor’s death during the raid and sentenced to two years and nine months in prison.
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