LOUISVILLE, Ky. — A police merit board hearing resumes Wednesday for a former Louisville Metro Police Department (LMPD) detective involved in the Breonna Taylor case.

What You Need To Know

  • Former LMPD Interim Chief Yvette Gentry testified before the Louisville Metro Police Merit Board Tuesday

  • She defended her decision to fire former detective Joshua Jaynes, saying he was untruthful

  • Jaynes prepared the search warrant for Breonna Taylor's home 

  • Wednesday is the third day for Jaynes' hearing to appeal his termination 

Joshua Jaynes is fighting to get his job back.

Appearing before the board Tuesday, former Louisville Metro Interim Police Chief Yvette Gentry defended her decision to fire him.

“You can’t cheat," she said. "You can’t go apply for a no-knock warrant for a girl you say is not a suspect based on information that is untrue."

Jaynes was not at Taylor's home the night officers executed a search warrant there, but he prepared the warrant, according to police. Taylor's boyfriend Kenneth Walker has said when officers were breaking open Taylor's door, he fired a shot, not knowing the men were police. Police returned fire, ultimately killing Taylor. 

"I have nothing personal against him, but we have a woman in her house that, she certainly picked bad guys," Gentry said. "She's not the first woman that did that. She was failed by those men, and she was also failed by Detective Jaynes cheating the system with the desire to get in there, and he used false information to get it.”

Gentry testified that she fired Jaynes because he was untruthful when he claimed he verified through a U.S. Postal Inspector that Taylor’s ex-boyfriend and drug investigation target Jamarcus Glover was receiving packages at her home. 

Jaynes has said he verified the information through Sgt. Jon Mattingly and Jaynes' attorney, Thomas Clay, argued that’s allowed under what’s called the “collective knowledge doctrine.” 

Clay asked former Kentucky State Police deputy commissioner William Alexander Payne, "If one police officer tells another police officer information that may support probable cause for the issuance of the search warrant, is the officer who received that information able to use that information as if it’s his own?"

"Yes," Payne replied. "I’m not familiar with a time that another sworn police officer was never a verified source of information." 

Clay said he plans to call Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer to testify, but it was not clear Tuesday if he would appear before the board Wednesday. 

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