Update (March  9, 2021):  A Kentucky judge has decided to permanently close the criminal case against Kenneth Walker, the boyfriend of Breonna Taylor, who fired a gun in the direction of police officers during a no-knock raid resulting in his girlfriend's officer-involved killing. 

On Monday, Jefferson County Circuit Court Judge Olu Stevens approved Walker’s legal team’s request for a permanent dismissal, according to HuffPost. Steve Romines, Walker’s attorney, argued that his client “acted in self-defense and that he did not know that police were on the other side of the door.”

Romines said the judge dismissed the charges because of pending civil litigation that he filed on Walker’s behalf. The court documents associated with the pending legal battle cite alleged faults by law enforcement while conducting their investigation, per HuffPost. 

“You are protected from even being arrested by law, if you act in self defense in your own home,” Romines told local station Fox 19 Now. “Yet, that didn’t occur here. Kenny was arrested that night and jailed, prosecuted, indicted.”

As Blavity previously reported, Walker was inside Taylor’s apartment in the early morning of March 13, 2020, when police barged through the doors, executing a no-knock search warrant of the space they thought was being used to funnel drugs. 

Upon the police’s forced entry, Walker fired a single gunshot in their direction before officers fired off at least 20 bullets. Taylor, a 26-year-old EMT, was shot at least five times, according to HuffPost. 

Despite conflicting ballistics reports, Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron contended that Walker, who was in possession of a legally registered firearm, shot an officer in the leg.

In September, Walker announced that he was suing the city of Lousiville for wrongfully arresting him while he was defending his home from those he thought were intruders at the time, as Blavity previously reported. 

None of the Louisville Police Department officers involved in the fatal raid were brought up on charges for the murder of Taylor, but two officers have since been terminated from their roles at the department, per HuffPost. 

Last week, Walker’s attorney Romines posted a tweet alleging that local authorities were complicit in framing and charging Walker to cover up Taylor’s killing.

“Every piece of evidence from when they falsely arrested and indicted him a year ago up till today prove that Kenny acted in self defense and was immune from prosecution. Yet he was framed and charged to cover up Breonna’s killing,” he wrote.

Original (September 1, 2020): Kenneth Walker, the boyfriend of Breonna Taylor, is suing the city of Louisville, Kentucky, Attorney General Daniel Cameron and the local police department for their conduct during and after a March 13 raid that ended in Taylor's death, according to the Louisville Courier-Journal.

The lawsuit states Walker is the victim of police misconduct and is disputing firing a single shot that injured the leg of Sgt. Jonathan Mattingly. According to Walker's attorney, Steve Romines, the bullet fired by Taylor's boyfriend is not the shot that struck the officer.

"We know police are firing wildly from various angles," Romines told The Courier Journal. "The timeline and evidence at the scene is more indicative of (police) actually shooting Mattingly than it is Kenny Walker."

"The radio transmission and the 911 calls reflect that a minute and eight seconds transpires with no shots before they start shooting into the apartment again. During that time, Hankison yells 'reload.' We know police are firing wildly from various angles. The timeline and evidence at the scene is more indicative of (police) actually shooting Mattingly than it is Kenny Walker," Walker's lawyer told the newspaper.

Romines said his team has seen photos from the crime scene and other evidence that shows officers fired at least 40 to 45 bullets into Taylor's apartment building in two separate waves. He also said there are photos showing that the round Walker fired had no blood on it. 

The lawsuit coincides with days of newly released information from the Louisville Courier Journal and The New York Times painting a more clear picture of what happened before, during and after the raid. 

The Louisville Police Department, Mattingly, detective Myles Cosgrove and former detective Brett Hankison have defended their decision to shoot Taylor by saying Walker's shot prompted their flurry of bullets.

Hankison was fired in June for firing wildly into Taylor's apartment and another nearby apartment with occupants inside, as Blavity previously reported.

Much of what Romines writes in the lawsuit is confirmed in a June letter from Police Chief Rob Schroeder announcing Hankison's termination. Schroeder said Hankison was "blindly firing ten rounds into Breonna Taylor's apartment without supporting facts that your deadly force was directed at a person whom posed an immediate threat of danger or serious injury to yourself or others."

"I find your conduct a shock to the conscious. I am alarmed and stunned you used deadly force in this fashion," Schroeder wrote of Hankison in June. 


Walker's lawsuit also includes a number of other complaints about the raid and how he was treated after Taylor was shot to death. He is seeking an undisclosed monetary settlement. 

The 28-year-old's civil complaint, filed in Jefferson County District Court on Tuesday, lists allegations of assault, battery, false arrest and imprisonment, malicious prosecution, abuse of process and negligence related to the actions of officers during the raid.

Mayor Greg Fischer, Jefferson County Commonwealth’s Attorney Tom Wine, Schroeder, former Police Chief Steve Conrad, the Louisville Area Governmental Self-Insurance Trust, and other officers are all named in the lawsuit. 

In the lawsuit, Romines wrote that after the shooting, police violently arrested Walker, interrogated him "under false pretenses" and then tried to charge and prosecute him.

Romines wants a judge to grant Walker immunity because of Kentucky's "stand your ground law," which bars prosecutors from charging anyone acting in self-defense. Walker has a Kentucky conceal-carry permit for the weapon he used to fire the warning shot that night. 

“Kenny continues to reel from the death of the love of his life, but he is also the victim and survivor of police misconduct — misconduct that threatens his freedom to this day,” the lawsuit states.

The police department and prosecutors faced a wave of criticism on Monday when it was revealed that they offered Jamarcus Glover, Taylor's ex-boyfriend, a plea deal if he said Taylor was part of his drug operation.

Glover is facing a litany of serious drug and gun-related charges but prosecutors offered to let him out on probation if he said Taylor was part of his "organized crime syndicate.”

He declined the offer. 

“The fact that they would try to even represent that she was a co-defendant in a criminal case more than a month after she died is absolutely disgusting,” Sam Aguiar, the lawyer for Taylor's family, told WDRB. 

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