The city of Louisville has reached a $2 million settlement with Breonna TaylorKenneth Walker’s boyfriend, who sued the city for the 2020 police killing of his late partner, The New York Times reports.
Taylor and Walker were in their apartment on the night of March 13, 2020, when Louisville Metro Police executed a no-knock warrant. Walker said he thought the police were intruders, so when they burst in he fired his shotgun, hitting an officer. The police responded with a torrent of gunfire, kill taylor. (Walker was initially charged with attempted murder, but prosecutors eventually dropped the charge.)
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Walker sued the city and the officers involved in 2020. He accused police of excessive force and violation of his rights when they allegedly failed to announce themselves upon entering Taylor’s apartment. (Police have regularly claimed to have announced their arrival.)
In a interview on Red table discussion in October, Walker recounted the fatal shooting and his interactions with police that night. Because he was detained and prosecuted for attempted murder that night, he noted that it took him hours to learn of Taylor’s death, mostly because the cops weren’t giving him any details.
“They try to ask me about myself, and I’m like, ‘Look, I’m going to get through this. Where’s Breona? Is Breonna okay? Is she alive?'” he recalled. No one answers my questions so I had to find out what happened on the news, sitting in jail They didn’t say her name but they said a woman had been killed That’s like that I found out.
Walker’s attorney, Steve Romines, said The temperature about the settlement, “We are glad the case is over as the time factor was going to take forever to resolve the case.” He added: “We believe the case has added value. But everyone was ready to end it. (Romines didn’t come back rolling stonerequest for comment.)
The Louisville Metro Police Department said it had “no comment at this time.” A representative for Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer did not immediately return a request for comment.
Walker’s lawsuit with the city of Louisville was settled two years after the city settled a separate lawsuit filed by Taylor’s family for $12 million. Of the (now former) officers implicated in Taylor’s murder, only one – Brett Hankison – faces state chargesand he was finally found not guilty on three counts of first-degree wanton endangerment earlier this year.
In August, however, Hankison and three other former LMPD officers implicated in Taylor’s death – Joshua Jaynes, Kelly Hanna Goodlett and Kyle Meany – were arrested and slapped with federal charges. The charges included federal civil rights violations, including lying to obtain a search warrant for Taylor’s apartment. So far, Goodlett has pleaded guilty, while Jaynes has pleaded not guilty.
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