Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron’s office on Wednesday announced that it is moving to delay the public release of grand jury records in the case of Breonna Taylor, whose fatal shooting by police in March has ignited protests across the nation.
Cameron’s office filed a motion Tuesday night to delay the release of the grand jury records by a week with the aim of protecting the identities of witnesses, especially private citizens, named in the audio recording. The recording was originally slated to be released publicly later on Wednesday.
The motion requests to “redact personal identifiers of any named person, and to redact both names and personal identifiers of any private citizen.”
Jefferson Circuit Court Judge Ann Bailey Smith is expected to rule on Cameron’s motion on Wednesday.
Taylor, a black 26-year-old emergency medical worker, was shot eight times in her Louisville, Ky. apartment on March 13 as police officers executed a search warrant for two men who were known to reside there. The warrant was issued because police suspected that a man connected to a drug ring was receiving packages containing drugs at Taylor’s apartment, but no drugs were found in the botched raid.
Last week, the Kentucky attorney general’s office announced first-degree wanton endangerment charges against one of the officers who shot into Taylor’s apartment. The officer was not charged with murder, and the other two officers involved in the fatal shooting were not charged.
Hours after the charges were announced on Wednesday of last week, protesters took to the streets in Louisville and “set fires, caused property damage and failed to disperse after being warned,” police said. Two Louisville police officers were shot and sustained serious injuries, and nearly 100 protesters were arrested during the night’s demonstrations.