Breonna Taylor’s boyfriend files federal suit against Louisville PD
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Breonna Taylor’s boyfriend has filed a federal lawsuit accusing the Louisville Police Department of excessive force and unlawful search in her death.
Kenneth Walker filed the suit in US District Court for the Western District of Kentucky on Friday — one day before the one-year anniversary of Taylor’s death during a botched police raid, the Courier-Journal reported.
Walker, who also has a pending state lawsuit over the March 13, 2020, shooting, claims in the new federal filing that Louisville police bear “direct responsibility” over Taylor’s death.
The couple was in Taylor’s Louisville apartment when cops burst in to execute a narcotics warrant — rushing in with guns drawn.
Walker, who said he did not know the intruders were police officers, grabbed his licensed handgun, wounding one cop in the leg.
Taylor was shot and killed by the cops when they opened fire.
Police did not find any drugs in the apartment.
According to Walker’s lawsuit, the department’s practice of executing warrants “in the middle of the night,” coupled with inadequate training, creates a dangerous climate.
“In view of these manifold failures by LMPD, the events that led to Ms. Taylor’s death and Mr. Walker’s injuries on March 13, 2020 — and other incidents like it — were all but inevitable,” the lawsuit said, the Courier-Journal reported.
The new lawsuit comes just days after a judge ruled that the charges initially filed against Walker were permanently dismissed with prejudice — which means he cannot be hit with new charges in the case.
Three of the cops involved in the fatal raid have since been fired.
Ex-Detective Brett Hankison was fired in June for “blindly” firing 10 shots into the apartment, with some of the slugs going through the wall into a home next door.
Two others — detectives Joshua Jaynes and Myles Cosgrove, who allegedly fired the shots that killed Taylor — were fired in January.
A fourth cop, Sgt. Jonathan Mattingly, who was wounded by Walker in the exchange of gunfire, filed a lawsuit over his injuries.
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