LOUISVILLE, Ky. — On Sept. 23, five months after the death of 26-year-old Breonna Taylor, Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron announced there would be no charges related to her death filed against the officers who raided her home in March.
This month, one of the officers involved has filed charges against Taylor’s boyfriend.
Louisville police officers Jonathan Mattingly, Brett Hankison and Myles Cosgrove arrived at Taylor’s home just after midnight on March 13 to execute a warrant on drug-related suspicions. Taylor’s boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, said he did not hear police announce themselves, but he did hear banging on the door. The officers used a battering ram to break in the door, and Walker grabbed his legally-owned gun, thinking intruders had broken into the home. He fired one warning shot which struck Mattingly in the leg. The officer returned more than 30 rounds of gunfire throughout Taylor’s home, hitting her multiple times. She died from her wounds. There were no drugs in the home.
In a new lawsuit, Mattingly said he experienced “severe trauma, mental anguish and emotional distress” as a result of Walker’s actions. Mattingly is suing Walker for emotional distress, assault and battery.
“Walker’s conduct in shooting Mattingly is outrageous, intolerable and offends all accepted standards of decency and morality,” the lawsuit reads.
The suit comes after police initially charged Walker with first-degree assault and attempted murder of a police officer for the round of fire that struck Mattingly. The charges were dropped in June.
“One would think that breaking into the apartment, executing his girlfriend and framing him for a crime in an effort to cover up her murder would be enough for them,” Walker’s attorney, Steve Romines, said in a statement. “This baseless attempt to further victimize and harass Kenny indicates otherwise.”
Officer Hankison has been the only person to be indicted on any charges related to the case; a Kentucky grand jury indicted the former police officer for shooting into neighboring apartments in Taylor’s community. He was charged with three counts of wanton endangerment.
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