‘I’M A HUMAN BEING, TOO’

Breonna Taylor’s Neighbor: Why Weren’t Cops Charged for Shots Fired Into My Apartment?

During the March 13 raid into Breonna Taylor’s home, two bullets went through Stanley David’s apartment—but no officer was charged for the stray shots.

Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron stunned the nation when he announced the officers who fatally shot Breonna Taylor would not be charged with killing her—and only one would face charges instead for recklessly firing shots that endangered people in other units. But Brett Hankison is only charged for shooting into Taylor’s neighboring apartment unit, which had three people inside—and not Stanley David’s home one floor above. In an interview with the Louisville Courier-Journal, David, a native of Liberia, questions why the two bullets that went through the floor of his apartment on March 13 didn’t get included in Hankison’s charges. The decision to only file charges on behalf of three of Taylor’s neighbors—who are white—calls into question the strength of Cameron’s case and the grand jury report, which state officials are demanding be made public.

“My apartment was hit, too,” David said. “The bullet that came through my floor right in front of my bedroom door, if that bullet went through my bed, maybe I would have been dead, too. I’m a human being, too.” Officers Jonathan Mattingly and Myles Cosgrove—the cop who fired the shot that killed Taylor—weren’t charged after Cameron said their use of force in the March raid was “justified to protect themselves.”