Jason Connolly / AFP via Getty Images file
LOUISVILLE — Previously unheard audio of interviews from the investigation of the fatal police shooting of Breonna Taylor reveals new details about the events leading to her death, as well as the sympathetic approach investigators took while scrutinizing one of their own.
Click here to listen to the complete Mattingly recording.
Click here to listen to the complete, combined Walker recording.
A judge signed the search warrant in part because police claimed a postal official had confirmed the target of the investigation received packages at Taylor’s home. But a U.S. postal inspector later told WDRB there were “no packages of interest” sent there. The postal inspector did not respond to a request for comment from NBC News.
The arm of the LMPD charged with determining whether a police-involved shooting is justified is the Public Integrity Unit, which recorded the interviews obtained by NBC News.
“I’m scared about what to say,” Walker says.
She encourages him to sign the Miranda rights waiver and talk.
“It would be good for you to sign this and then we can get you, get your statement and then we can leave you alone,” she tells Walker. He’s compliant, later also providing his iPhone passcode when Seelye asks for it.
On the audio of the interview, as Seelye listens, Sgt. Vance steers Mattingly through the moments of the shooting, at times suggesting answers.
“But you know you just said you made a conscious decision, you know, ‘I’m now injured I need to move, so they can protect themselves and me as well,’” says Vance. “And then — I don’t want to put words in your mouth …”
“No, that’s it,” says Mattingly.
“The point of an interview is getting unbiased information, and that’s not what he’s doing,” said Alpert, a criminologist at the University of South Carolina. “The questions are so leading, they’re basically giving him as much information as they’re getting.”
Hankison was “a little bit worked up” that night, Mattingly says in the taped interview, arguing with and pointing his gun at a neighbor who was objecting as police banged on Taylor’s door.
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Article URL : https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/new-audio-police-interviews-sheds-light-police-probe-fatal-shooting-n1233183