Taylor, 26, was shot by police in her Louisville, Kentucky, apartment in March.
Sergeant Jonathan Mattingly, one of the Louisville police officers involved in the March raid where Breonna Taylor was killed, says the shooting “had nothing to do with race.”
This can’t be related to George Floyd. This is nothing like that, ”said Mattingly, speaking for the first time in an interview with ABC News and the Louisville Courier-Journal.
It’s not Ahmaud Arbery. It is nothing like that. These are two totally different types of incidents, ”said Mattingly.
Floyd’s death during an arrest in May sparked protests across the country and abroad against racism and the use of force by police after a police officer knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes. The protesters chanted his last words, “I can’t breathe.” And they condemned the recent murders of black people, including Arbery, who was shot and killed in February in Brunswick, Georgia, while running.
Taylor, 26, was shot and killed by police on March 13. Mattingly and two other officers broke down the door of her apartment while executing a late-night “do not call” order in a narcotics investigation. Mattingly was shot by Taylor’s boyfriend, and then the police opened fire, killing Taylor. Her death sparked demonstrations in Louisville for more than 100 days.
Mattingly said the protests and public anger surrounding the Taylor case could have been avoided if the Louisville mayor and police officers had corrected the misinformation earlier.
“It was unbearable,” Mattingly said.
“When you have the truth in your hands and everything else is squeezed around you, it is frustrating.”
None of the three police officers at Taylor’s residence that night have been charged in Taylor’s death. Last month, an investigating jury charged one of them with three counts of putting someone in aggravated danger by gunshots that entered a neighboring apartment with three people inside. The agent has pleaded not guilty.
Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron has faced criticism for failing to press charges in Taylor’s death. He said he asked the investigating jury for a formal indictment on charges he thought could be proven in court.
Convictions of police officers in such cases are rare. Around 1,000 people are shot dead by law enforcement agencies across the country each year. About eight police officers a year have been arrested and charged with murder or manslaughter for homicides in the United States since 2005, according to Philip Stinson, a professor of criminal justice at Bowling Green State University in Ohio.
Mattingly dismissed claims by some that there was a racial motivation behind the actions of the three officers who fired their guns during an apparent drug raid at Taylor’s apartment.
“It’s not a race thing, as people want to try to make it be. It is not. This is a point where we were doing our job. We gave too much time when we entered, they shot me, we returned fire, ”Mattingly said in the interview.
This is not that we went hunting someone. This is not kneeling on one neck. It’s nothing of the sort, ”he added.
The full interview with Mattingly will air on ABC’s Good Morning America on Wednesday morning.
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