Newly released body camera footage shows Breonna Taylor’s tearful boyfriend telling Louisville Metro Police Department officers his girlfriend was dead inside her apartment.
In the video, Kenneth Walker stood barefoot with his hands up as armed LMPD officers shouted commands and a K-9 dog barked incessantly. Former LMPD Detective Brett Hankison forced Walker on his knees as the Louisville man repeatedly asked what he did wrong. The sobbing man told Hankison his girlfriend, Taylor, was dead.
The 26-year-old EMT died on March 13 after Hankison and two other LMPD officers shot her in her Louisville, Kentucky, apartment during a botched drug raid. Walker reportedly fired a 9mm gun and the round hit LMPD Sgt. John Mattingly in his leg. Hankison, Mattingly and detective Myles Cosgrove returned fire, which struck Taylor six times.
The LMPD has insisted the officers announced themselves but Walker maintains they did not. In the body camera footage, Walker told the officers Taylor asked who was at the door several times before the gunfire erupted. when trying to serve a no-knock warrant to an ex boyfriend of Taylor; that boyfriend didn’t live at the home.
“Yeah, somebody was banging at the door and she said, ‘Who is it?’ and the other started shooting,” he said.
“No, we announced three times, ‘Police, search warrant,’ ” an officer interjected.
“There’s somebody in there dead?” Hankison asked.
“Yeah, my girlfriend,” Walker responded. “It was her house.”
Walker also told the officers Taylor fired the warning shot.
“Did she shoot or you shoot?” Hankison asked.
“It was her. She was scared,” Walker said.
He later admitted he fired the shot. Walker was charged with attempted murder after the shooting, but the charges were later dropped.
The body camera footage is among the evidence released by Louisville, Kentucky, police this week, according to CBS News. Yvette Gentry, interim LMPD police chief, is leading an investigation of the raid. The FBI is also investigating to determine if any civil rights violations occurred.
