ATTENTION KENTUCKY ATTORNEY GEN DANIEL CAMERON
RE: THE MURDER OF MS. BREONNA TAYLOR by Sgt. Jonathan Mattingly, Officer Myles Cosgrove and now former Officer Brett Hankison
You should have assigned an independent prosecutor to the Breonna Taylor case. But, ‘they’ did not want you to, did they? Because ‘they’ wanted be able to have someone that they thought they could control overseeing Breonna’s case; someone who’d be in their corner, on their side. The ‘they’ to which I am referring is The Fraternal Order of Police and Kentucky law enforcement, the ones that you said you had, “an obligation to support”. Remember? You swore to support them when ‘they’ got you into office. Yep. Remember that speech?
I’m not going to say that with only eight years of experience as a lawyer, you are too inexperienced to be a state Attorney General and to handle a case of this magnitude.
I’m not going to say that you lack the fortitude to make a decision that will put you at odds with those in law enforcement, which in your own words, you said, "making sure that they know [i.e., law enforcement] they have a voice in the attorney general's office” was important to you.
I’m not going to say that you are probably shirking responsibility and hoping that the FBI, in their separate, independent investigation will make the decision that you are too hesitant to make - although you know that the decision that needs to be made is to charge these officers with murder.
You must not shirk responsibility.
State criminal charges for the officers who fatally shot Breonna Taylor rest in the hands of the man elected to be the Kentucky Attorney General and that man is YOU.
The credibility of the upstanding law enforcement officers who risk their lives everyday and do their job with a sense of humanity - and who do not deserve to be placed in a category anywhere near that of the three officers who murdered Breonna Taylor - is in your hands, as well.
Set Sgt. Jonathan Mattingly, Officer Myles Cosgrove and now former Officer Brett Hankison apart from the thousands of upstanding law enforcement officers in your state.
Do your job and do it swiftly.
Serve justice to the life of this young lady - who could have been any one of the women you grew up loving and any one of the brown people whose love ushered you through life to the official state position that you are currently in. Serve this young 26- year old women’s life justice and serve it swiftly.
This is the biggest decision of your career. History is staring you directly in the face.
Are you not going to do your part in curbing the tide of racial violence against innocent members of marginalized groups at the hands of law enforcement?
Are you not going to hold law enforcement accountable when their actions are criminal?
If it helps you, think about it this way: Breonna Taylor could have very well been ANYONE of any race who put you into office. These officers could have shown a complete disregard for a young white couple’s lives, too. (Although we both know statistics show that these type of murders disproportionately happen to people who look like you and me: Black people)
You said that "Justice is…achieved by examining the facts in an impartial and unbiased manner.”
So, serve justice. Show the Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) and so many others in law enforcement that they are not above the law; that they cannot buy an Attorney General out of his credibility. Review the internal investigation into these three officers' actions and make the only decision that the facts of this case can lead you to make: Sgt. Jonathan Mattingly, Officer Myles Cosgrove and now former Officer Brett Hankison - the three Louisville plainclothes officers who fired their weapons and killed Taylor in her home - need to be charged with murder.