Breonna Taylor death: Injured raid cop sues slain EMT's boyfriend who shot him for causing 'emotional distress'
A Louisville police officer, who was among the cops who opened fire during a police raid at Breonna Taylor's apartment, is filing a lawsuit against her boyfriend for alleged assault, battery, and emotional distress on the night she was killed. Taylor, a 26-year-old EMT, was shot at least eight times during the raid by police officials on March 13. The tragedy occurred during a botched police drug raid as the officers barged into her house after midnight. Taylor's boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, fired his gun during the incident thinking intruders had entered the house, injuring Sergeant Jonathan Mattingly.
Mattingly has now claimed that 26-year-old Walker fired a shot that hit him in the leg after officers entered the home on a "no-knock" search warrant as part of a drug investigation. Mattingly, a 20-year veteran of the force, was one of the two officers who returned fire and directly shot at Taylor, and was the only officer wounded in the incident. However, a lawsuit filed by the family states no drug was found at the home. The family's lawyers have said that the main suspect, Jamarcus Glover, was already in police custody at the time of the raid. Neither Taylor nor Walker had any criminal records. Louisville police officers previously said that they identified themselves before breaking down Taylor's door.
Mattingly, in recent interviews, blamed Walker for Taylor's death, saying officers "returned fire" after he was shot in the leg. The officer is now filing a lawsuit which states that the incident caused Mattingly "severe trauma, mental anguish, and emotional distress." The suit reads: "Walker's conduct in shooting Mattingly is outrageous, intolerable, and offends all accepted standards of decency and morality," according to CBS News.
The officer, in a previous interview, had stated that Taylor's death was a tragedy but insisted that he was doing his job. "This is a point where we were doing our job, we gave too much time when we go in, I get shot, we returned fire," Mattingly said in an interview with ABC News/The Courier Journal last week. "This is not us going, hunting somebody down. This is not kneeling on a neck. It's nothing like that," he said, referring to George Floyd’s death. Walker's lawyer, in response to Mattingly's lawsuit, claimed that his client was "immune from both criminal prosecution and civil liability as he was acting in self-defense in his own home." Walker has also filed a lawsuit against several Louisville police officers involved in the incident.
Taylor's boyfriend has insisted that he is "a million percent sure" police did not identify themselves the night they conducted a drug raid on her apartment. Walker first spoke out on the issue in a sit-down interview with 'CBS This Morning'. During the interview, he doubled down on his previous claims and stated that he and Taylor did not hear Louisville police identify themselves as they broke into their house at midnight on March 13. All the three officers were in plainclothes when they forced entry into Taylor's apartment.
"It was dead silent in the house," Walker said. "It was 12.00, 1.00 at night, or whatever time. So it was — it's always quiet. We live in a quiet place. So if somebody was on the other side of the door saying anything, we would hear them." He added that he and Taylor asked "several times" who was there when police began knocking, but there was no response. "There was no response. So the next thing I know the door is flying open," Walker said. "I'm a million percent sure that nobody identified themselves. That's why I grabbed the gun. Didn't have a clue. I mean, if it was the police at the door, and they just said, 'we're the police', me or Breonna didn't have a reason at all not to open the door to see what they wanted. That's why I never thought it was the police. Because why would the police be coming here?" he added.