NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — A Kentucky Grand Jury's decision in the death of Breonna Taylor has prompted protests across the country including in downtown Nashville.
On Wednesday, only one of the three officers involved in the shooting was indicted on first-degree wanton endangerment charges.
Taylor was shot to death when officers executed a late-night search warrant during at her apartment in a narcotics investigation.
Former detective, Brett Hankison, was charged with multiple counts. He allegedly fired his gun blindly through a door and window into an adjacent apartment with three people inside, according to the state attorney general.
The charges were widely criticized as insufficient by demonstrators and activists.
Local attorney Gary Blackburn will be the first to tell you he doesn't have all the facts surrounding the investigation into Taylor's death.
But as a lawyer and an average citizen, he's been keeping an eye on the case.
"The police officers will say that they made a mistake, they didn't have any intention of harming anyone and it was all a huge misunderstanding. That may be true, but that explains why this is wanton endangerment rather than murder," he said.
Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron said the officers who fired their weapons inside Taylor's home were justified in their actions since Taylor's Boyfriend, Kenneth Walker allegedly fired first.
Instead, the state only charged one officer and he wasn't the one who fired at Taylor.
"The statute is wanton endangerment and it has to do with circumstances that demonstrate an extreme indifference to the value of human life," he explained. "In Kentucky, wanton endangerment is when someone deliberately engages in conduct which creates a substantial danger of death or serious physical injury to another person."
It can carry a one to five-year prison sentence.
"If he endangered the lives of three other people because there are three counts, how is it that the officers who fired the shots that killed her were not found to have done the same thing?"
It's a question many are asking. Blackburn says federal charges could still come. He says the United States could also bring a civil rights charge against the officers.
