Cop Involved In Breonna Taylor Shooting Admits What He Thinks They Should've Done Differently

One of the Louisville police officers who carried out the fumbled raid that killed Breonna Taylor earlier this year admitted that knocking on her door multiple times before bursting in was a fatal “mistake.”

Sgt. Jonathan Mattingly, 47, insisted he regretted banging on the door and waiting several seconds to storm Taylor’s apartment in a rare public interview with "Good Morning" America this week. 

“We expected that Breonna was going to be there by herself,” Mattingly told host Michael Strahan on Tuesday. “That’s why we gave her so much time. And in my opinion that was a mistake.”

Breonna Taylor Photo: Facebook

Instead of giving the couple time to answer the door, Mattingly suggested that had police immediately entered Taylor’s apartment while serving a no-knock warrant on March 13, it could have saved the Louisville EMT’s life. 

“What would I have done differently, the answer to that is simple now that I’ve been thinking about it,” he added. “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.”

Mattingly, a 20-year police veteran, stated he believed that the split-second delay 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,” Mattingly said. “Because if that had happened … Breonna Taylor would be alive, 100 percent."

A crime scene photo from Breonna Taylor's apartment. Photo: LMPD

Mattingly was also struck by a single bullet fired by Taylor’s boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, a registered gun owner who accidentally opened fire, mistaking the police raid for a burglary. 

Mattingly, who claimed police knocked on Taylor’s door six times before bursting in, alleged he saw two silhouettes of people in the darkness, roughly 25 feet in front of him, prior to gunfire erupting. Seconds later, Walker fired a single shot, striking Mattingly.

“My eyes went straight to the barrel of his gun,” Mattingly recalled. “I could see the tip of it. And my eyes just focused in on it as soon as I saw it.”

Louisville officer Brett Hankinson later opened fire, blindly firing into the apartment, killing Taylor. Hankison was fired and also indicted on wanton endangerment charges in Taylor’s death. Her family has since filed a civil suit against Louisville Police. 

Mattingly and Cosgrove were placed on administrative reassignment following the shooting, the Courier Journal reported. 

Taylor’s name, Mattingly described, is permanently “attached” to him “for the rest of” his life. 

“I feel for her,” the disgraced police officer told ABC News and the Courier Journal in a joint interview. “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.”