Newly released video shows officers walking through shell casings after Breonna Taylor was shot dead in her apartment by Louisville police — with the only officer charged in the deadly Kentucky raid calmly wandering back into the crime scene.
“Is that theirs?” fired detective Brett Hankison is heard asking as he walks among shell casings at the entry to Taylor’s apartment in bodycam footage obtained by Vice News.
Shining his flashlight down the hallway where 26-year-old EMT Taylor was fatally shot, Hankison is also heard asking if there are “any guns visible.”
“Like a long gun?” he asks after an investigator tells him they “did not see any,” according to the Vice report.
The presence of the officer — recently indicted for wanton endangerment for firing shots into a neighbor’s apartment during the botched raid — is just one of “multiple” violations of department policy, Vice said.
The agency’s policy dictates that the officers involved should have immediately been assigned an “escort officer” to take them to the Public Integrity Unit (PIU) office in order to verify that each officer “is isolated from all non-essential individuals for the remainder of the initial investigation,” according to the Lousiville Courier-Journal.
The Public Integrity Unit investigates officer-involved shootings.
“I’ve never seen anything like this,” a former LMPD narcotics officer, who reviewed parts of the footage, told Vice News. “This is not how it’s supposed to work.”
The footage obtained by the outlet also shows how SWAT officers at the scene were uncomfortable.
“I’d back out until they get PIU in here,” SWAT officer Sgt. Brandon Hogan tells Hankison.
“This is a crime scene,” the investigator also warns, according to Vice.
Hankison later walks up to a SWAT team member standing on the sidewalk and asks if his body camera is on — with the video cutting out, Vice said.
The footage also showed other officers involved in the raid remaining on scene — with one even helping to interview neighbors and potential witnesses.
Detective Myles Cosgrove — who fired 16 rounds but was not charged — also roamed freely while still carrying a rifle, the report said.
Louisville officials have long insisted that no bodycam footage exists of the raid or the deadly shooting itself.
However, Vice said it obtained hours of footage from SWAT officers and others who arrived after the shooting.
Another clip shows Taylor’s boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, being threatened with a police K9 as he was arrested outside the apartment after he was accused of opening fire on the officers.
“Walk straight back or I will send this dog on you!” an officer yells, according to the report.
When he asked what he did, the footage apparently shows Hankison telling him, “You’re going to prison, that’s what’s going on. For the rest of your f—ing life.”
The LMPD, Hankison’s attorney, and the union attorney who was present for officers’ interviews did not immediately respond to Vice’s requests for comment on the footage.
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