LMPD :: Louisville Metro Police Department
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Standoff, murder suspect had previous shootout with police

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A Louisville man accused of killing two people and hurting another during a standoff in the Smoketown neighborhood was formally charged with murder Saturday morning.

Ricardo Taylor, 24, is charged with two counts of murder, three counts of kidnapping, assault, and cocaine possession. This isn't his first run in with police.

Back in April of 2006, in the same neighborhood at the Shepherd Square apartment complex, police say undercover detectives noticed then 18-year-old Taylor trying to make a drug deal. That's when Taylor fired shots at them and barricaded himself inside an apartment. Taylor eventually came out shooting again and that's when officers fired back, hitting Taylor in the stomach. At the time, activist Louis Coleman thanked officers for not doing more damage.

"We appreciate the restraint that was done by he and his officers to take this young man out of here alive," Coleman said.

Flash forward six years and a young man and woman are found dead in an apartment and police are holding now 24-year-old Taylor for the crime. They say he once again barricaded himself inside an apartment in the Smoketown neighborhood. But, that this time, he was holding three hostages. Two of them, a young man and a woman, 25-year-old mother of two, Tela Harvey were shot and killed.

After failed negotiations with police, they shattered the apartment windows with cans of tear gas, smoking out the two people left living inside. One woman was rushed to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries and Taylor was taken into custody.

After being charged with two counts of attempted murder of a police officer in 2006, Taylor was again arrested in 2008 for attempted murder.

He's now being charged with two counts of murder, one count of assault, and three counts of kidnapping. Officers say while he was in an interview room at LMPD headquarters, he tried to ditch a baggie of cocaine in the trash. According to police, he admitted his involvement in the crime.