A judge dismissed charges against Kenneth Walker, the boyfriend of Breonna Taylor, for allegedly shooting and wounding a police officer last year.
The charges were dismissed permanently, meaning that Walker cannot be recharged for those crimes in the future.
Walker was initially charged with assault and attempted murder. He was accused of opening fire on Louisville Metro Police Sergeant Jonathan Mattingly. Walker insisted that police officers did not announce themselves before entering his home on the night of March 13, 2020.
He thought their home was being burglarized.
Officers obtained a no-knock warrant and were searching for an ex-boyfriend of Taylor’s.
Taylor, a 26-year-old emergency medical technician, was fatally shot during the raid.
Last May, the charges against Walker were dropped without prejudice — meaning he could face the same charges again. At the time, Jefferson Commonwealth Attorney Tom Wine cautioned that Walker’s case could be presented before a grand jury a second time.
Prosecutors moved to dismiss the charges last week.Steve Romines, Walker’s attorney, praised the prosectors for the move last week.
“After the worst year of [Walker’s] life, prosecutors have finally acknowledged that he did nothing wrong and acted in self-defense,” he told CBS News. “He looks forward to continuing the fight to hold the real wrongdoers accountable for the harm that they’ve caused. Both he, individually, and our community, as a whole, cannot begin the process of healing until that happens.”
In September, Walker sued the city and the police department, asserting that he is a victim of police misconduct. However, though the criminal charges against him have been dropped, he still faces a civil counterclaim filed by Mattingly, the Courier-Journal reports.
Walker’s lawyer says his client was used as a “scapegoat” to shield the officers who executed the botched raid that night.
“We believe the city used Kenneth as a pawn to cover up the events that took place on March 13, 2020, and further used him to cover up the deep-seated failures within the Louisville Metro Police Department,” Romines said in the statement. “It does not go unnoticed that neither the city nor the LMPD has apologized for using Kenneth as a scapegoat for an improper raid gone bad.”
