Former Louisville police officers Joshua Jaynes, Brett Hankison, and Kelly Goodlett have been charged for their actions in the March 13, 2020, raid in which Breonna Taylor was killed.
Joshua Jaynes, the former detective who applied for a search warrant for Breonna Taylor’s home in 2020, was arrested Thursday morning by the FBI, his attorney said.
Lawyer Thomas Clay said Jaynes faces conspiracy charges.
Det. Kelly Goodlett, Jaynes’ partner, was indicted on conspiracy charges.
And former Det. Brett Hankison was indicted on two counts of deprivation of rights.
Previously, only Hankison had been charged – for wanton endangerment – in the March 2020 raid that ended in police shooting and killing Taylor inside her home on Springfield Drive near Pleasure Ridge Park.
Jaynes asked a judge to approve a search warrant for Taylor’s apartment. He claimed in an affidavit that a postal inspector verified that drug suspect Jamarcus Glover, who had dated Taylor, was using Taylor’s home to receive parcels.
But Tony Gooden, a U.S. postal inspector in Louisville, told WDRB News in May 2020 that Louisville police didn’t confer with his office. He said a different law enforcement agency asked his office in January 2020 to investigate whether any potentially suspicious mail was going to the unit.
The local office concluded that it wasn’t. “There’s no packages of interest going there,” Gooden said.
LMPD’s internal investigation found that Louisville officers asked two members of the Shively Police Department to check with a postal inspector. They were told no packages were being sent to Taylor’s home.
In a May 18, 2020 interview with LMPD’s Public Integrity Unit, Shively police Sgt. Timothy Salyer said he asked Sgt. Mattingly about the search warrant affidavit after reading it following the shooting.
“Sgt. Mattingly stated he told Detective Jaynes there was no package history at that address,” Salyer told investigators, according to a summary of the interview.
The summary said Mattingly initially reached out to Salyer and Detective Mike Kuzma of the Shively department in mid-January 2020, at Jaynes’ request, to find out about packages going to Taylor’s apartment. Salyer said he was asked because he had a good relationship with a Louisville postal inspector.
In his interview, Salyer told LMPD investigators that he notified Mattingly that “no packages had been received at the address and the post office did not receive any packages either.”
Salyer said he later was contacted by two other LMPD officers, Det. Mike Nobles and Det. Kelly Hanna, about any packages going to Taylor’s home, said he “told them the same information,” according to the summary.
On April 10, 2020, about a month after Taylor was fatally shot by police, Salyer said he received a text from Jaynes, again asking about any packages going to Taylor’s home.
“(Salyer) told Detective Jaynes there were no packages in months delivered to the address and the location was flagged if any were detected and the Postal Inspector would be notified,” the summary said.
Jaynes also asked if Glover was receiving any “mail matter” and Salyer said he would check.
“Sgt. Sayler (sic) was confused as to why Detective Jaynes contacted him almost a month after the shooting incident inquiring about packages being delivered to the address,” according to the summary.
Nobles said he was confused about the “conflicting information on the affidavit as well,” the summary says.
When asked if she was going to issue a show-cause order as to why Jaynes shouldn’t be held in contempt for providing false information in an affidavit, Judge Mary Shaw, who approved the search warrant, said she was “concerned but deferring to the FBI investigation.”
Jaynes was fired from the Louisville Metro Police Department in January for being untruthful. He appealed to the police merit board, which upheld the termination in June 2021, and then to Jefferson Circuit Court.
A judge also upheld the firing, ruling this June that the “crux of this case is the truthfulness of Mr. Jaynes’ statement in the search warrant affidavit.”
Clay, his attorney, has appealed that ruling.
