Who is Jonathan Mattingly? Cop involved in Breonna shooting says she would be alive if no-knock warrant was served
One of the officers who was involved in the botched up police raid that saw the fatal shooting of Breonna Taylor earlier this year has admitted that knocking on her door many times before bursting in was a "mistake."
Sgt Jonathan Mattingly, 47, revealed that he regretted banging on the door and then waiting for several seconds to storm into Taylor's apartment while doing an interview with 'Good Morning' America this week. Mattingly shared, "We expected that Breonna was going to be there by herself. That’s why we gave her so much time. And in my opinion, that was a mistake."
Mattingly said that instead of giving Taylor and her boyfriend Kenneth Walker time to open the door, the police should have immediately entered into the apartment while serving a no-knock warrant on March 13 which could have actually saved her life. "What would I have done differently, the answer to that is simple now that I’ve been thinking about it. Number one, we would have either served the no-knock warrant or we would have done the normal thing we do, which is five to 10 seconds," he added.
Taylor was fatally shot during a botched police raid while she was inside her Louisville apartment on March 13. At the time of the incident, Taylor and her boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, had reportedly been sleeping and were awakened when the officers burst into the home. She was killed when three police officers opened fire at her boyfriend. The police had broken down her door using a battering ram in the middle of the night as part of the investigation into her ex-boyfriend Jamarcus Glover.
Mattingly believes that the split-second delay is what cost Taylor her life. "To not give people time to formulate a plan, not give people time to get their senses so they have an idea of what they’re doing. Because if that had happened … Breonna Taylor would be alive, 100 percent."
Mattingly had also been struck by a bullet that was fired by Walker who is a registered gun owner who accidentally opened fire, mistaking the police raid to be a burglary. According to Mattingly, the police knocked on Taylor's door around six times before rushing in. He added he allegedly saw two silhouettes of people in the darkness around 25ft in front of him. Just seconds later, Walker fired a single shot that struck Mattingly.
"My eyes went straight to the barrel of his gun. I could see the tip of it. And my eyes just focused in on it as soon as I saw it," he recalled. Louisville officer Brett Hankison later opened fire and blindly shot into the apartment killing Taylor. Hankison was fired from the department and was indicted on wanton endangerment charges.
According to the Courier-Journal, officers Mattingly and Myles Cosgrove were placed on administrative reassignment after the shooting. Mattingly said that Taylor's name is permanently attached to him "for the rest of" his life. While speaking to ABC News, he said, "I feel for her. I hurt for her mother and for her sisters...That’s me having a heart and a soul, going as a parent, ‘How do you move on?’ I don’t know. I don’t want to experience it."