The Kentucky attorney general who investigated the Breonna Taylor case responded to months of blistering criticism by saying the decision not to charge any police officers in her death was “ultimately” in the grand jury’s hands, though some jurors have complained they were limited in what crimes they could consider.
Republican Attorney General Daniel Cameron, speaking to The Associated Press on Thursday, said he hopes people recognize that his role was to “look at the facts as they are, and not how a particular narrative is being driven by particular people.”
Reflecting on a case that thrust him into the national spotlight, Cameron said: “I’ve said this until I’m blue in the face that what happened to Miss Taylor was a tragedy, unequivocally a tragedy.”
Cameron, Kentucky’s first Black attorney general, said he was proud of the work by his team, which spent months poring over evidence and presented the case to the grand jury. The outcome, though, was in the hands of the grand jury, he said.
“The prosecutors made a recommendation to the grand jury and those members ultimately decided to pursue that particular recommendation and indict one of the officers,” Cameron said in a sit-down interview with The AP.
Cameron said in his September announcement of the grand jury’s findings that the panel “agreed”
Three members of the 12-member grand jury later came forward to say Cameron’s team limited their scope and misled them about what charges they could consider against the officers. Cameron on Thursday didn’t criticize the three grand jurors — saying they can “speak for themselves” — as he attempted to deflect their stinging review of how the case was presented.
“No one is ever going to be 100% in agreement with the decisions or recommendations that are made,” he said. “But from our point of view, our responsibility was to the facts and to the law.”