A judge has thrown out attempted murder charges against the boyfriend of Breonna Taylor who shot a police officer during a botched raid on the couple’s apartment last March that left the innocent woman dead.
Kenneth L. Walker was indicted for attempted murder of a police officer about two months after Taylor’s death, but maintained he thought an intruder was coming into the home and fired in self-defense.
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Prosecutors dropped the charge last May but left open the opportunity to pursue Walker again if new evidence emerged.
Walker’s attorney recently filed a motion seeking the permanent dismissal of the indictment, saying Walker “did not know that police were on the other side of the door.”
On Monday, Jefferson Circuit Judge Olu Stevens dismissed the case with prejudice, meaning it cannot be reconsidered.
Taylor, a 26-year-old Black emergency medical worker, was shot multiple times March 13 by the officers who entered her home using a no-knock warrant during a narcotics investigation which she was not involved.
Reports said she had gone to bed alongside Walker, who fired a single shot and wounded Louisville Metro Police Department Officer Jonathan Mattingly in the leg as he burst through the door. Mattingly has since recovered and remains on the force.
The two other Louisville officers who fired shots that night — Myles Cosgrove and Brett Hankison — have been dismissed from the department.
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Hankison became the only deputy indicted in September in connection with Taylor’s death, but he was not charged with murder. He faces three counts of first-degree wanton endangerment unrelated to Taylor’s death for shooting into neighboring apartments during the raid.
After a lengthy investigation, Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron concluded the officers had announced themselves before entering the apartment — and did not execute the warrant as “no-knock.”
Cameron later acknowledged that he never put forth an option for the grand jury to indict any of the officers for murder, saying the use of force by the officers was justified because Walker was the first to open fire.
Taylor’s death sparked national outrage and months of protests that coincided with massive protests sparked by the May 25 police custody death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
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