Louisville police were actively attempting to gather "negative information" about Breonna Taylor's boyfriend Kenneth Walker even after the fatal shooting case had been handed to a special prosecutor.
This was among the revelations tucked into the thousands of pages and hundreds of hours of footage and audio released to the general public earlier this week. And by attorney Steven Romines' assessment, police's decision to continue gathering the information shows that "a cover-up" and smear campaign against Walker had been put into motion.
"And it reflects the fact that over two months into the investigation of Breonna Taylor's death, LMPD [was] more interested in including unsupported allegations to smear Kenny Walker than it [was] in actually finding the truth," Romines, who's representing Walker in a civil lawsuit, told NBC News on Friday.
Romines also denied allegations from police regarding his client, stating definitively that they are trying to "smear him after the fact" in an effort to justify their actions that resulted in the death of Taylor. At the core of this aspect of the controversy is what relevance any gathered information could have to the investigation. Additionally, as Romines explained, it could easily be argued that it's a clear sign of a conflict of interests.
The Louisville Metro Police Department was undergoing efforts to obtain such information about Walker while also investigating its own officers in connection with the killing of Taylor, with one officer involved in the raid now reported to have been continuing to look for "a justification" as national interest in the case grew.
Late last month, body cam footage was released that contradicted claims the department had made about Taylor's murder.
