Breonna Taylor’s boyfriend Kenneth Walker Files Federal Lawsuit Against Louisville Police

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Breonna Taylor‘s boyfriend Kenneth Walker has filed a federal lawsuit against Louisville Metro Police Department and the officers involved in the fatal shooting.

The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Kentucky, contends LMPD violated his constitutional rights.

The lawsuit said LMPD’s actions in the raid violated Walker’s Fourth Amendment rights, which prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures.

Georgetown University Law Center professor Cliff Sloan, one of the lawyers representing Walker, said in a statement that the lawsuit was important to vindicate Walker’s rights.

“We are seeking to ensure that there is justice and accountability for the tragic and unjustified police assault on Kenneth Walker and killing of Breonna Taylor in her home in the middle of the night,” he said.

On March 13, 2020, plainclothes LMPD officers Myles Cosgrove, Brett Hankison and Sgt. Jonathan Mattingly, executed a no-knock warrant at the apartment where Taylor and Walker were living in Louisville, Kentucky. The officers contended that Taylor’s ex-boyfriend Jamarcus Glover was shipping drugs to the address.

The officers broke through the door as the couple was sleeping. Walker, a licensed gun holder, said he thought someone was breaking in and fired a single shot that hit Mattingly in the leg. The officers returned with a barrage of bullets that struck and killed Taylor, a 26-year-old EMT and aspiring nurse.

No drugs or money were found.

Walker was charged with attempted murder of a police officer in the raid. Walker has always maintained he fired in self-defense. The charge was dropped last week.

The complaint also accused the LMPD of “tacitly approving excessive use of force” in failing to “adequately train its officers in using reasonable (and not excessive) force.”

The raid led Walker to suffer “mental anguish, emotional distress, trauma, humiliation, embarrassment, and reputational harm,” the suit said.

Walker is seeking compensatory and punitive damages.