Kenneth Walker III, boyfriend of Breonna Taylor, has filed a lawsuit against the Louisville Metro Police Department and the officers involved in the fatal shooting, just a day before the one-year anniversary of her death.
ABC News reports that Walker is seeking compensatory and punitive damages for violations of his constitutional rights, with the lawsuit stating that LMPD infringed on his Fourth Amendment rights, which prevents unreasonable searches and seizures. The complaint was filed against Louisville and Jefferson County Metro government and officers Brett Hankison, Myles Cosgrove, and Jonathan Mattingly.
“This is a very important lawsuit to vindicate Kenneth Walker’s constitutional rights under the U.S. Constitution,” Cliff Sloan, a Georgetown University Law Center professor who is representing Walker in the suit, told ABC. “We are seeking to ensure that there is justice and accountability for the tragic and unjustified police assault on Kenneth Walker and killing of Breonna Taylor.”
The suit says that the LMPD “tacitly approved excessive use of force” in its failure to “adequately train its officers in using reasonable (and not excessive) force.” The complaint continued, “Although Mr. Walker had committed no crime, officers on the scene took him into custody. Defendant Hankison told Mr. Walker that he was ‘going to jail for the rest of [his] life.’”
The fatal raid caused Walker to endure “mental anguish, emotional distress, trauma, humiliation, embarrassment, and reputational harm,” according to the suit. Following the incident, he was charged with attempted murder of a police officer for firing a single shot that hit Mattingly in the leg. Walker has maintained that it was self-defense, with the charges dropped only this week.
Cosgrove and another detective, Joshua Jaynes were fired in early January, and Hankison was fired last summer. None of the officers involved in the deadly raid were charged for killing Taylor. Hankison was charged with three counts of felony wanton endangerment in connection with the shooting. He pleaded not guilty.
On the year anniversary of Taylor’s death, Megan Thee Stallion announced that she partnered with Fashion Nova to donate $100,000 to the Breonna Taylor Foundation. Meg wrote about the initiative on Instagram, writing, “The core mission of the foundation is to support economic, social, and racial justice through police reform and government accountability.”
