Three months after officers from the Louisville Metro Department broke into Breonna Taylor’s apartment with a battering ram and fired multiple shots into the home, ultimately killing the 26-year-old, the department has finally decided to release the incident report. According to the Courier-Journal, the incident report was, for all intents and purposes, blank.
The news site details that the incident report is roughly four pages long, but many important details—including the story about what happened the night officers killed Taylor—were left essentially empty.
Taylor was shot at least eight times after officers barged into her apartment on March 13; however, the incident report listed her injuries as “none,” even as the weapon is listed as a handgun.
Although officers used a battering ram to knock down Taylor’s apartment door, the “no” box under “forced entry” was checked.
Under “bias motivation,” the report says “NONE (NO BIAS).”
And, as the Courier-Journal notes, the most frustrating part is that the “narrative” section of the report, which is supposed to have detailed what happened that night, is also left nearly blank, with only the words “PIU investigation” written.
In fact, the only things included in the report are the incident’s time, date, case number and location, as well as Taylor’s full legal name, age, race and ethnicity. The description of the charges read “death investigation—LMPD involved.” The names and ages of the officers involved in her shooting were listed under the “offenders” portion of the report. (Sgt. Jon Mattingly, 47; Myles Cosgrove, 42; and Brett Hankison, 44, have still not been arrested or charged in the incident and are actually on administrative reassignment pending an investigation.)
The Breonna Taylor Incident Report is listed by the Courier-Journal on Scribd.
The rest of the report is unfilled, sparking harsh backlash from officials.
“It’s issues like this that erode public confidence in LMPD’s ability to do its job, and that’s why I’ve ordered an external top-to-bottom review of the department,” Mayor Greg Fischer said in a statement on Wednesday night calling the report “unacceptable.” “I am sorry for the additional pain to the Taylor family and our community.”
The police department released its own statement, saying that it is working to correct the report, which the police said was made by a reporting program creating a paper file.
Nonetheless, the Courier-Journal is suing the LMPD for the immediate release of the department’s investigative file into the shooting. So far, the department has refused to do so, citing an ongoing investigation.