Louisville Metro Police Department intends to fire the detective responsible for obtaining the search warrant which resulted in Breonna Taylor’s death at the hands of police.
According to a letter sent to Detective Joshua Jaynes by Louisville Chief of Police Yvette Gentry, an internal investigation confirmed that Jaynes lied in order to obtain the search warrant. The investigation also found that Jaynes also failed to complete a Search Warrant Operations Plan form before the warrant was executed.
In order to obtain the warrant, Jaynes signed an affidavit stating that he had verified that Jamarcus Glover had been receiving packages at Breonna Taylor’s address through a U.S. postal inspector. Those statements were false – Jaynes had instead received that information through another officer, Sgt. Jonathan Mattingly. Mattingly had in turn received the information through a police officer on the nearby Shively, KY police force. There was no evidence that the information had ever been verified through a U.S. Postal Inspector.
“Having an independent, third party verify information is powerful and compelling information. The inclusion of this in the affidavit as a direct verification was deceptive,” Gentry’s letter states. “If the information was obtained through other officers it should have been noted as a reliable source, not by official title of the US Postal Inspector, who was not contacted.”
In addition, Gentry notes that because an operations plan was never filed for executing the search warrant, “a very dangerous situation was created for all parties involved.” According to Gentry, although Jaynes was the officer responsible for the majority of the investigation resulting in the warrant, neither he nor his direct supervisor was present or even available at the scene when the warrant was executed at Breonna Taylor’s address.
You can view the full termination letter here.
