Kenneth Walker Tells The Heartbreaking Story Of Breonna Taylor Being Killed By Police
Newly-released police interviews are providing more information into what happened the night Breonna Taylor died.
Kentucky Commonwealth Attorney Tom Wine said on Friday (May 22) that his office is requesting the case against Kenneth Walker, Taylor’s boyfriend who was indicted for attempted murder of a police officer in March after he allegedly fired his gun striking Sgt. John Mattingly, be dismissed for now.
Wine believes additional investigating needs to be completed by the FBI, the Attorney General and the U.S. Attorney’s office.
Wine also played audio recordings of interviews Louisville Metro Police Department investigators conducted with both Walker and Mattingly the night of the March 13 incident.
In the first recording, Walker says he and Taylor were in bed that night when they heard someone banging on the door.
"It's like doom, doom, doom, doom doom doom!" Walker said in the recording, according to WLKY. He says Taylor began yelling and asking who was at the door, but there was no answer.
One of the central elements to this case has been conflicting information about whether officers knocked on Taylor’s door and properly announced themselves as law enforcement prior to them entering her apartment. LMPD has previously claimed they did knock and identify themselves, while Attorneys for Taylor’s family point to neighbors who say that isn’t true.
Walker explains in the audio recordings that both he and Taylor got out of bed, got dressed and had just stepped into the hallway when he says someone busted down the front door. Subsequently, he says he fired one shot and then heard Taylor screaming as more shots were fired.
Wine says that in the recordings, Walker is heard acknowledging that officers did knock on the door, although he didn’t know they were police at the time.
Another question that remains over the case is why Taylor was ever considered a suspect in the first place. Police obtained a search warrant over Walker’s alleged ties to drug dealing, however no drugs were found at his residence after a thorough search. Following the shooting, police asked Walker who shot at them. He said it was Taylor, however a Public Integrity Unit investigation found that Walker was the actual shooter. Walker then explained why he said it was his girlfriend.
“I didn’t mean to, I was just scared and didn’t want them to think that I was like on something like when I first came out, I had no reason to say [that],” he said. “My gun’s legal and everything. Clearly I was scared. I don’t know. Nobody announced theyself.”
The audio recording of Sgt. John Mattingly tells a different story. He said his fellow officers knocked on Taylor’s door multiple times but no one answered. According to him, when it was clear no one was going to answer, they broke down the door. He says he walked into the apartment, turned down the hall, was met with gunfire and returned fire.
