Attorney Benjamin Crump, left, holds up the hand of Kenneth Walker in Frankfort, Ky., on June 25, 2020. (AP Photo/Timothy D. Easley, File)
Kenneth Walker III, the boyfriend of Louisville police killing victim Breonna Taylor, reached a $2 million settlement on Dec. 12 with the City of Louisville. The settlement has resolved lawsuits Walker filed in response to “the unlawful police raid that led to Ms. Taylor’s death,” a news release from Walker’s legal team stated.
Taylor, 26, was shot and killed by Louisville Metro Police Department officers on March 13, 2020, as they executed a no-knock search warrant as part of a narcotics investigation involving a former boyfriend of Taylor’s. Walker was at Taylor’s home at the time. The raid happened just before 1 am while both Walker and Taylor were asleep in bed.
Officers knocked down the door of Taylor’s apartment. Walker later said he and Taylor yelled to seek who was at the door, but got no response. Police claimed they announced themselves. Believing police could be intruders, Walker grabbed a gun he legally owned and fired a shot when the officers broke through the door, CNN reported.
Three officers responded with 32 shots, none of which hit Walker. Six struck Taylor, killing her, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/dec/14/breonna-taylor-death-boyfriend-settlement-louisville-policeThe Guardian reported.
Walker was accused of shooting Louisville Metro Police Sgt. Jonathan Mattingly in the leg and was charged at first with attempted murder of a police officer and first-degree assault. Prosecutors later dropped the charges.
In September 2020, Walker filed a lawsuit in state court, followed by a federal civil rights lawsuit in March 2021.
About six months after Taylor was killed, the city paid a historic $12 million settlement to her family to settle a wrongful death lawsuit.
Taylor’s death “will haunt Kenny for the rest of his life”, Walker’s attorney, Steve Romines, said in a statement to the Post. “He will live with the effects of being put in harm’s way due to a falsified warrant, to being a victim of a hailstorm of gunfire and to suffering the unimaginable and horrific death of Breonna Taylor.”
In August, federal prosecutors charged four former Louisville police officers for their roles in the botched raid.
Attorney Benjamin Crump, left, holds up the hand of Kenneth Walker during a rally on the steps of the Kentucky State Capitol in Frankfort, Ky., on June 25, 2020. Walker, the boyfriend of Breonna Taylor who fired a shot at police as they burst through Taylor’s door the night she was killed, has settled two lawsuits against the city of Louisville, his attorneys said Dec. 12, 2022. (AP Photo/Timothy D. Easley, File)
