‘It was uproar in that room’: Breonna Taylor grand jurors give first interview, say panel tried to revolt over lack of charges

The grand jury that heard evidence in the Breonna Taylor case expressed immediate outrage the moment prosecutors presented only wanton endangerment charges, two of the jurors say.

“It was uproar in that room,” one of the men told CBS’s Gayle King in the pair’s first on-camera interview since stepping forward with court filings.

“Almost the entire room” protested over the lack of charges related to Taylor’s death, the second grand juror told King in the interview that aired Wednesday. Both men asked to remain anonymous.

“As we were listening to (the evidence), we were sure this was leading up to something like that,” he said when asked if he’d expected murder or manslaughter charges.

The grand jurors and their lawyer said the panel never even met Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron during the proceedings and weren’t given the charges they would be considering upfront, a departure from the usual “road map” such jurors usually receive.

The panelists sat through nearly 20 hours of evidence covering the night Taylor died and were asked to consider only wanton endangerment charges against former Louisville Metro Police Det. Brett Hankison for the shots he fired at a neighboring apartment, the men confirmed.

“They never gave us the opportunity to deliberate on anything but the charges for Hankison. That was it,” the first grand juror said.

“It’s like, ‘What did we just sit through?’” he told King. “To me, it was a betrayal.”

Taylor, 26, was shot and killed March 13 after a group of LMPD officers broke down her door after midnight while serving a no-knock warrant in a narcotics investigation involving her ex-boyfriend.

Her current boyfriend Kenneth Walker, a licensed gun owner, fired a warning shot because the couple believed they were the victims of a home invasion, he later told police.

Sgt. Jonathan Mattingly and Det. Myles Cosgrove fired 22 bullets back, killing Taylor. Hankison fired another 10.

At a press conference announcing Hankison’s charges, Cameron said the grand jury “agreed” Mattingly and Cosgrove acted within the law.

“While there are six possible homicide charges under Kentucky law, these charges are not applicable to the facts before us because our investigation showed, and the grand jury agreed, that Mattingly and Cosgrove were justified in the return of deadly fire,” Cameron said.

The second grand juror told King that Cameron’s press conference marked the first time he heard about the “six possible” homicide charges.

“It was not presented to us,” he said.

“This was all Cameron. This was up to him. We didn’t get a choice in that at all. So, I was livid,” the first juror said. “By the time I heard what he was saying, everything that came out of his mouth, I was saying ‘liar,’ because we didn’t agree to anything.”

Both grand jurors said they listened to Walker’s anguished 911 call and found it credible that he had no idea the men who stormed the apartment were police officers.

“You could hear the distress. Everything about what he said was believable,” the first grand juror told King. “It made sense all the way through.”

He said the evidence showed police “covered up” a botched operation.

“I felt like there should have been lots more charges,” he said.