Former Louisville cop set to plead guilty in first conviction related to Breonna Taylor killing

A former Louisville, Kentucky police detective is set to plead guilty in the first conviction related to the killing of Breonna Taylor in 2020.

The Washington Post first reported on Friday that Kelly Goodlett, a former detective with the Louisville Police Department, would accept a plea agreement in the U.S. District Court of the Western District of Kentucky.

Goodlett is scheduled to appear in front of Magistrate Judge Regina S. Edwards later this month to formally plead guilty to one charge of conspiring to violate the civil rights of Breonna Taylor. She is accused of  helping to falsify a search warrant and covering up the act by filing a false report related to the warrant.

Goodlett retired from the Louisville Metropolitan Police Department last week after the federal charges were formally brought against her. The Post reports the charge  brought against Goodlett is part of the federal government’s approach to the Taylor case: to paint a picture of an “overzealous and imperious narcotics investigations unit that used reckless tactics and knowingly put local residents in danger with no legal justification.”

Taylor’s killing at the hands of police after they wrongly entered her apartment using a “no-knock” search warrant as she slept sparked nationwide racial justice protests. Goodlett is one of four officers who have been charged in relation to the killing. Former LMPD detectives Brett Hankison and Joshua Haynes and current Sergeant Kyle Meany were also charged. 

“The federal charges announced today allege that members of a Police Investigations Unit falsified the affidavit used to obtain the search warrant of Ms. Taylor’s home and that this act violated federal civil rights laws, and that those violations resulted in Ms. Taylor’s death,” said US Attorney General Merrick Garland at a press conference.