Louisville, KY — According to his attorney, Kenneth Walker woke up in the middle of the night to armed intruders kicking in his door. He then grabbed his legally owned firearm to defend himself. A hail of gunfire subsequently ensued, all but one of the bullets coming from police weapons. After the smoke cleared, Walker’s girlfriend 26-year-old Breonna Taylor, a certified EMT working on the front lines of the coronavirus pandemic, died in her bed from the gunshot wounds. This happened on March 13, and since then, tensions between the Louisville Metro Police and the victim’s family, as well as the community have been mounting.
This week, the family of the decorated EMT — who was murdered by cops attempting to snuff out an arbitrary substance deemed illegal by the state — announced they have hired Benjamin Crump, a Tallahassee, Florida-based attorney who has become known for his involvement in high-profile cases of black Americans killed in controversial shootings.
According to their lawsuit, Taylor was shot 8 times during a drug raid on the wrong home.
For defending himself in his own home against armed robbers in the wrong house looking to kidnap him for alleged drug possession, Walker has been charged with first-degree assault and attempted murder of a police office. Adding credence to the claim cops were at the wrong house is the fact that Walker faces no drug charges.
Crump released a statement Monday calling Taylor’s killing “inexcusable” and accurately pointed out that none of the cops involved in slaying this innocent woman have faced so much as a slap on the wrist.
“We stand with the family of this young woman in demanding answers from the Louisville Police Department,” Crump said. “Despite the tragic circumstances surrounding her death, the department has not provided any answers regarding the facts and circumstances of how this tragedy occurred, nor have they taken responsibility for her senseless killing.”
“LMPD has tried to sweep this under the rug,” Sam Aguiar, another attorney on Taylor’s case said. “The family right now has a very understandable desire to know the full circumstances of what went on that night.”
“We held a press conference about this shooting when it occurred to detail what we were able,” spokeswoman Jessie Halladay wrote in an email. “The Public Integrity investigation remains ongoing, therefore it would not be appropriate for us to comment.”
In March, police fired 22 bullets into the couple’s home, many of them shot from outside. According to Aguiar, police were actually looking for someone else and other officers had picked the suspect up at his home in a separate raid shortly before the shooting.
According to the lawsuit, LMPD executed at least two search warrants — including one at Taylor’s home — in the early morning of March 13 in an attempt to locate a suspect named Jamarcus Glover.
But police had already located Glover at his home and detained him before executing the warrant at Taylor’s residence, the suit says.
Glover’s home is more than 10 miles from Taylor’s home on Springfield Drive, records show. He faces drug and gun charges.
At 12:40 a.m., LMPD Sgt. Jonathan Mattingly and officers Brett Hankison and Myles Cosgrove entered Taylor’s residence without knocking or identifying themselves as police, according to the suit, which cited statements from multiple neighbors.
Witnesses to the shooting corroborate this narrative, and told local media that police never announced themselves before barging in to the home.
“All she heard was a ram (breaking through the door) and gunfire,” the unidentified neighbor said.
What’s more, Walker had no criminal past. Taylor’s aunt said Walker had just accepted a job to work at UPS.
“These two were not drug dealers,” she said. “It just don’t make sense to us at all.”
Now, it is up to Walker to seek justice for himself and his recently murdered girlfriend.
That is when Walker attempted to defend he and his lover against the armed intruders. Sadly, he was unsuccessful.
After the raid, Walker was arrested for defending himself in his own home against armed invaders because he shot one of the armed invaders in the leg. Showing the unnecessary nature of the entire deadly debacle is the fact that Walker was released from jail after his arrest because he is not a threat.
Naturally, this infuriated the police union.
“Not only is he a threat to the men and women of law enforcement, but he also poses a significant danger to the community we protect!” River City FOP president Ryan Nichols wrote in a Facebook Post Friday. “Home incarceration was not designed for the most violent offenders!” “I call on the public to condemn the actions of Judge Olu Stevens.”
But according to his family and his attorney, Walker is not a violent offender and was an innocent man raided by cops who murdered the love of his life.
According to WDRB, defense attorney Rob Eggert said police burst in Taylor’s home without announcing their presence and fired at least 22 times, with bullets going into neighboring apartments, and “it was incredible that Mrs. Taylor was the only one killed.”
“Had Breonna Taylor been killed by anyone except police, the person or persons responsible for her death would have been charged with a homicide,” Eggert said in a court document, also alleging Walker is a “victim of police misconduct.”
Taylor and Walker’s family echoed the attorney’s sentiment, claiming police were simply in the wrong home, looking for a different person.
“These are two good kids,” said Bianca Austin, Taylor’s aunt. “This is incompetent police work. My niece lost her life over this.”
“Something went terribly wrong,” Aguiar said. “This was clearly a botched execution of a warrant.”
The police union does not agree and claim that the family’s version of events simply doesn’t matter and is “irrelevant.” They do not see Walker as a man defending his home from intruders who kicked in the door in the middle of the night. They see him as a cop killer who needs to be removed from society.
Police also claim that they did everything by the book when they invaded the home and killed an innocent woman as they looked for non-existent drugs and the wrong person.
In a heated post on Instagram, activist Shaun King called the killing “shameful” and demanded charges be brought against the officers involved.
“It is SHAMEFUL that this has carried on like this over the past month,” King wrote. “For weeks the city treated Breonna like she was a criminal. Police literally called her a ‘suspect,’ and said they killed a suspect for weeks, until finally being forced to admit they got the whole the wrong. They had no drugs. And they got the wrong people. She did EVERYTHING right. Everything.”
A petition has since been launched to bring charges against the officers involved.
Courtesy of TFTP
Matt Agorist is an honorably discharged veteran of the USMC and former intelligence operator directly tasked by the NSA. This prior experience gives him unique insight into the world of government corruption and the American police state. Agorist has been an independent journalist for over a decade and has been featured on mainstream networks around the world. Agorist is also the Editor at Large at the Free Thought Project. Follow @MattAgorist on Twitter, Steemit, and now on Minds.
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