Hero Former KY Cop Pleads Guilty To Fudging Search Warrant That Got Breonna Taylor Killed

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Breonna Taylor didn’t have to die.

Attorney General Merrick Garland made this clear a few weeks ago when he announced that the Department of Justice was charging four current and former Louisville, Kentucky, police officers with federal civil rights violations that directly resulted in Taylor's death.

Taylor was sleeping in her own home when cops executed her while executing a no-knock search warrant. That warrant was bullshit, and former Louisville Police Detective Kelly Goodlett finally fessed up Tuesday to falsifying the application with another officer. She pleaded guilty in federal court to one count of conspiracy.

Goodlett admitted that there wasn’t enough evidence to support approving the warrant for Taylor’s home, but her accomplice, former detective Joshua Jaynes, falsely claimed that they knew Taylor’s former boyfriend, Jamarcus Glover, was receiving packages at her apartment. However, Goodlett confessed that the detectives both knew Glover wasn’t living with Taylor. Let’s consider the actual stakes here. There was no suspected terrorist hiding out with the only detonator to a bomb he’d hidden in a mixed-use orphanage and animal shelter. They violated the Fourth Amendment for a drug bust, which would’ve been horrific enough if it hadn’t all gone to hell.

PREVIOUSLY:

 DOJ Charges Cops In Killing Of Breonna Taylor 

 Perfect Angel KY Cops Very Mad Breonna Taylor's Boyfriend Made Them Shoot Her Dead 

Two months after the cops killed Taylor, Goodlett and Jaynes met in Jaynes's garage and conspired to cover up their crime. The protests, marches, and visible anguish from Taylor’s family had little impact on them. They were only interested in saving their own sorry asses. They knowingly filed a false report to cover up their false warrant affidavit. Taylor’s boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, was still fighting charges at the time for having shot at the thugs who broke into her house. Goodlett and Jaynes would’ve let him rot.

Goodlett is the first police officer convicted over the March 2020 raid, which wasn’t “botched” so much as straight-up illegal.

From the New York Times:  

Ms. Taylor’s mother, Tamika Palmer, sat in the courtroom during the plea and wiped away tears, while a woman beside her held her arm. As part of the plea deal, Ms. Goodlett will remain free on bond until she is sentenced. The maximum prison term for the crime to which she pleaded guilty is five years.

 Selling drugs in Kentucky can get you a maximum of five years for a first offense. Goodlett’s crime led directly to Taylor’s death. She helped send armed cops into an innocent person’s home with casual disregard for Taylor or Walker’s lives.

On the upside, Goodlett is apparently singing like a white girl at karaoke night. Hopefully, this will help the DOJ bring the hammer fully down on the other officers. Of course, because this is America, the cops who actually shot and killed Taylor haven’t been charged. Prosecutors claim that they didn’t know the search warrant was as bogus as a James Frey memoir. That’s mighty convenient. It’s the same plausible deniability mafia dons set up for themselves.

Jaynes, who’s still facing charges, claimed he’d "verified through a US postal inspector” Glover was actively receiving packages at Taylor’s apartment. Jaynes has since admitted this was a lie and there was no postal inspector, but nonetheless he’s still pleading not guilty to the federal charges against him. His command of the law appears limited.

According to Goodlett’s plea agreement, cops had spotted Glover picking up a package at Taylor’s home a full two months before the raid but had no other actual ... what’s that word? Oh, right, evidence that he was still receiving packages. (Glover falsely using Taylor’s address also doesn’t technically implicate her in a drug ring.) The detectives reportedly didn’t even know if Glover had been to Taylor’s home six weeks prior to the fatal raid. Yeah, that’s hardly sufficient grounds for breaking into a US citizen’s home. The Constitution has applied to Black women for at least most of Taylor’s life.

Goodlett was still on the force until she was charged earlier this month. Presumably, they are investigating any other warrants she helped secure. On the TV show “Lucifer,” Goodlett would personally experience the last, traumatic moments before Taylor’s death on an infinite hell loop. That seems fairer than the handful of years she’ll actually serve.

[ New York Times ]

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