LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Shell casings litter the parking lot outside Breonna Taylor's apartment in crime scene photos taken by Louisville police in the hours after three officers fatally shot her March 13.
More than 1,200 photos obtained by The Courier Journal show at least six casings, marked by numbered green evidence signs, in the parking lot adjacent to her ground-floor apartment, in between a Roto-Rooter van and a gray pickup truck.
Closer to Taylor's home, eight additional casings are pictured along the sidewalk leading to her patio and the mulched garden next to it.
There are at least five bullet holes in her screen door, which is shattered, with the curtains drawn from inside her apartment. Photos of the curtains and vertical blinds covering the door also show bullet holes.
The images provide a closer look at the at Springfield Drive apartment where Taylor, 26, was shot and killed, as well as a better visualization of where officers who fired their weapons were located.
And they reflect the chaotic scene that attorneys for Taylor's family and her boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, described happened that night.
Read more: Photos, audio illustrate deadly moments in shooting of Breonna Taylor
Attorney Steve Romines, who represents Walker, told The Courier Journal the photos show police at the scene were "repeatedly firing blindly in multiple directions with no identifiable target, which is the very definition of wanton conduct."
Romines said the scene is like nothing he's seen in his roughly 30 years of practice.
"Generally speaking, police don't fire without an identifiable target. They could possibly miss and hit something else, but they don't just fire wildly," Romines said.
Here, however: "They are just firing, spraying the apartment," he said.
Police were at Taylor's apartment to serve a search warrant with a no-knock clause just before 1 a.m. March 13. Police broke down the apartment's front door with a battering ram, after knocking.
Walker fired one shot at who he said he believed to be intruders and Sgt. Jonathan Mattingly, Officer Myles Cosgrove and Officer Brett Hankison returned fire.
Taylor was struck five times and died in the hallway of her apartment.
Hankison has been fired from the Louisville Metro Police department for his role in the shooting, while Cosgrove and Mattingly have been placed on administrative reassignment.
In a termination letter from interim Chief Robert Schroder, Hankison is accused of "blindly" firing 10 rounds into Taylor's apartment and the one next door.
Crime scene photos appear to confirm that Hankison could not see into Taylor's apartment from his vantage point outside her patio door, along the parking lot. Blinds and curtains across the patio door were closed but riddled with bullet holes, the photos show.
"I find your conduct a shock to the conscience," Schroeder wrote in his termination letter on June 23. "I am alarmed and stunned you used deadly force in this fashion."
Romines, who has raised questions about whether it was Walker who shot Mattingly, as police have contended, said the photos show why he's taken that position: "Hell, anyone could've shot him."
Additional photos record officers who were at the scene that night, including Cosgrove, Mattingly and Hankison, along with Lt. Shawn Hoover, Anthony James, Michael Campbell and Michael Nobles.
Another series of photos shows the wallet in Mattingly's pocket that police have said helped to stop the bullet that went into his thigh, severing his femoral artery. A bullet hole can be seen in the top corner of the wallet.
At least one officer photographed with body camera
In photos taken after the shooting, Detective Anthony James is shown wearing a body camera on the right shoulder of his police vest, though the photos do not indicate if the camera was activated during the warrant execution.
Additionally, photos show that Cosgrove — one of the officers on administrative reassignment for firing his weapon — has a body camera mount on his vest.
At a news conference the same day as the shooting, former LMPD Chief Steve Conrad said there was "no body-worn video cameras" to share from the shooting.
"This incident was related to the execution of a search warrant by members of our Criminal Interdiction Division, and some of the officers assigned to this division do not wear body-worn video systems," he said.
However, attorneys for Taylor's family, Sam Aguiar and Lonita Baker, have argued in court filings that other members of the division were assigned cameras before Taylor's death and argued for any footage they may have to be released.
A previous Courier Journal open records request for body camera footage captured by officers responding to and/or on-scene at Taylor's apartment was denied by LMPD because "records requested make up intelligence and investigative reports being utilized in the criminal investigation" — not because none exists.
Photos show blood in the parking lot, but not by Taylor's door
Romines had previously told The Courier Journal that his review of the evidence indicates Walker didn't fire the bullet that nearly severed Mattingly's femoral artery. He also said no blood is visible in a photograph of the hollow-point bullet fired from Walker's .9 mm Glock.
Crime scene photos show that there is no blood in the breezeway or living room of Taylor's apartment, where Mattingly said he was when he was standing when he was shot, Romines said.
In a March 25 interview with investigators, Mattingly describes being the officer to knock on Taylor’s front door inside the breezeway and seeing Walker and Taylor straight ahead down the hallway when Walker fires.
“And as soon as the soon as the shot hit, I could feel the heat in my leg,” Mattingly said.
Mattingly said he fired four rounds back, went around the door and fired two more shots. That’s when he said he reached down and felt the blood on his leg.
He got out of the line of fire, he said, tripped on the curb and was pulled from between cars by Lt. Shawn Hoover.
Photos do show blood in between two cars in the parking lot, similar to where Mattingly describes tripping.
Other photos show a light-colored Nissan Altima with bloodstains dripping down the trunk. In the aftermath of the shooting, Mattingly described how officers on the scene put him on the trunk of a car before getting him to the EMS on scene.
This story will be updated.
Reach Tessa Duvall at tduvall@courier-journal.com and 502-582-4059. Twitter: @TessaDuvall. Support strong local journalism by subscribing today: https://ift.tt/2Z9C9oV.
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