Three officers fired a total of 32 shots, Mr. Cameron said. Rounds fired by Sgt. Jonathan Mattingly and Detective Myles Cosgrove struck Ms. Taylor, he said, while Mr. Hankison fired 10
Mr. Hankison fired into the sliding glass patio door and window of Ms. Taylor’s apartment building, both of which were covered with blinds, in violation of a department policy that requires officers to have a line of sight. Some of the bullets entered a nearby apartment where a pregnant woman, her husband and their 5-year-old child were asleep. Mr. Hankison was dismissed from the force, with a termination letter stating that he showed “an extreme indifference to the value of human life.”
Ms. Taylor’s name and image have become part of the national movement over racial injustice since May, with celebrities writing open letters and erecting billboards that demanded the white officers be criminally charged. Ms. Palmer sued the city of Louisville for wrongful death and received a $12 million settlement last week. But she and her lawyers insisted that nothing short of murder charges would be enough, a demand taken up by protesters nationwide.
Ben Crump, a lawyer for the family, wrote on Twitter that the failure to charge any officer for killing Ms. Taylor was “outrageous and offensive.” Gov. Andy Beshear of Kentucky and Mayor Greg Fischer of Louisville, both Democrats, called on the attorney general, a Republican, to publish as much of the evidence as possible online so that the public could review it.
Many legal experts said before the charges were announced that indictments for killing Ms. Taylor would be unlikely, given the state’s statute allowing citizens to use lethal force in self-defense. John W. Stewart, a former assistant attorney general in Kentucky, said he believed that at least Sergeant Mattingly and Detective Cosgrove were protected by that law.
“As an African-American, as someone who has been victim of police misconduct myself, getting pulled over and profiled, I know how people feel,” Mr. Stewart said. “I have been there, but I have also been a prosecutor, and emotions cannot play a part here.”