Kenneth Walker, the boyfriend of Breonna Taylor, filed a federal lawsuit against the Louisville Metro Police Department just a day before the one-year anniversary marking the day Taylor was fatally shot by police in their home in Louisville, Kentucky.
The tragic incident occurred on March 13, 2020, after police officers entered Taylor’s apartment on a no-knock warrant while she and Walker were in bed sleeping. Walker, a licensed gun owner, maintains that plainclothes
officers entered into their home unannounced. and that he called the police and fired a warning shot in self-defense, thinking that they were intruders. As a result, one of the officers was shot in the leg. The cops then responded with a hail of bullets that killed Taylor, a 26-year-old EMT worker. That same night, Walker was taken into custody and charged with the attempted murder of a police officer. The charges against Walker were just recently dismissed by a judge, as reported last week.Now, according to the Courier-Journal, Walker has filed a federal lawsuit against the Louisville Metro Police Department based on the events that transpired on the night Taylor was killed.
The lawsuit was filed on Friday in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Kentucky. The suit names the Louisville Metro Police Department and the officers who were involved in the botched raid and preceding investigation. He is seeking compensatory and punitive damages.
The complaint also states that the false information that was included in the search warrant was the basis for the search. It stated a detective had verified, through a US postal inspector, that someone at Taylor’s apartment had been receiving packages and that was the “substance” of the affidavit.
“Without Defendant Jaynes’ knowingly false and misleading statement in his sworn affidavit … it would have been obvious on the face of the warrant application that no probable cause existed to enter or search Ms. Taylor’s apartment,” the lawsuit stated.
“We believe the city used Kenneth as a pawn to cover up the events that took place on March 13, 2020, and further used him to cover up the deep-seated failures within the Louisville Metro Police Department,” Walker’s attorney Steve Romines said in a statement to the Courier-Journal.