Breonna Taylor's Boyfriend Kenneth Walker Reaches $2 Million Settlement With Louisville
Breonna Taylor’s boyfriend Kenneth Walker has settled his lawsuit with Louisville Metro.
According to The Courier Journal, Walker will receive $2 million.
After midnight on March 13, Louisville police officers Brett Hankison, Myles Cosgrove and Jonathan Mattingly executed a botched “no-knock” warrant at Taylor's apartment, which she shared with Walker. Shots were fired and Taylor was hit eight times and died. Walker fired back with a legal gun, thinking someone was trying to break into their home.
The police raid found no drugs at Taylor’s apartment and she was not the target of the investigation. Instead, it was her ex-boyfriend Jamarcus Glover who the police were after. Glover had been arrested earlier that same night.
In October 2020, Walker told Gayle King, “If it was the police at the door and they just said ‘we’re the police,’ me or Breonna didn’t have a reason at all not to open the door and see what they wanted.”
Walker said that, believing it was intruders, he fired one shot as a warning. But that shot struck Hankison. The officers then released a barrage of gunfire, which killed Taylor. “I don’t think I ever heard so many gunshots all at the same time,” Walker remembered. “I’ve never been to war, but I assume that’s what war sounds like.”
Attempted murder charges were filed against Walker but the charges were dropped in May 2020. In March 2021, the charges were dismissed without prejudice.
Walker’s federal lawsuit sought damages for violations of his Fourth Amendment rights. The lawsuit stated, according to Court docs obtained by CNN, that “the warrant was based on fabricated assertions; the raid was unnecessarily conducted in the middle of the night; the officers did not announce they were police; and the officers responded with excessive force.”
Neither Kenneth Walker nor the Louisville Metro Police Department has released a statement about the settlement.
