Sandy MaloneLouisville, KY – Prosecutors in Louisville have said they will not refile charges against Breonna Taylor’s boyfriend for shooting a police officer during the warrant service that led to his girlfriend’s death.
The incident occurred when Louisville Metropolitan Police Department (LMPD) officers were serving a search warrant related to a drug investigation on Taylor’s apartment with a team of officers on March 13, 2020.
Walker opened fire on the officers and shot LMPD Sgt. Jonathan Mattingly in the leg, kicking off a gunfight that left Taylor dead.
None of the officers were charged in connection with Taylor’s death.
Walker was initially arrested and charged with attempted murder for shooting Sgt. Mattingly, CBS News reported.
The investigative records showed that after Taylor was shot, Walker told police that it was his girlfriend who had shot at them as he was being arrested.
“We were in bed, we were scared! We didn’t know who it was!” Walker told officers in the video. “She asked 10 times, ‘who’s at the door?’”
“There was banging at the door she said ‘who is it’ and then they started shooting,” he claimed.
“No. We said three times we had a search warrant,” one of the officers told Walker in the video.
That’s when police realized there had been somebody else shot inside the apartment.
Walker later changed his story and admitted he had been the one who opened fire and shot Sgt. Mattingly.
Attorneys for Taylor’s boyfriend have said he was obviously under emotional duress when he tried to pin the shooting on his dead girlfriend.
He was arrested and charged with the attempted murder of Sgt. Mattingly.
Walker later claimed during an interview with CBS News that he didn’t know his girlfriend was dead until he saw Taylor had died on the news, contrary to what the bodycam showed he told officers when he was being arrested.
Jefferson County Commonwealth Attorney Tom Wine dropped the attempted murder charge against Walker in May of 2020 without prejudice, which means he could be recharged for the same crime at a later date.
Walker filed a lawsuit on Sept. 1, 2020 that claimed he was interrogated by police after the shootings and then was illegally arrested, detained, charged, and prosecuted, according to TMZ.
The lawsuit claimed the 28 year old was protected from prosecution under the state’s Stand Your Ground law.
The civil lawsuit filed by Walker asked the judge to give him immunity from prosecution for firing what he called a single “warning shot” after officers rammed Taylor’s door, TMZ reported.
Walker’s lawsuit seeks damages for assault, battery, false arrest and imprisonment, malicious prosecution, abuse of process, and negligence stemming from the incident.
Sgt. Mattingly, who has been the most vocal of the LMPD officers involved in the Taylor case, gave an interview to ABC News and said Walker wasn’t firing a warning shot when he was hit.
“He wasn’t shooting at the ground or a warning shot,” the sergeant described what happened and demonstrated the position. “He’s pushed out with two hands looking straight at me. We… I saw his gun. Our postures were the same looking at each other when he fired that shot at me.”
On March 4, prosecutors announced in a motion that “the investigations into this matter have concluded and no new information relevant to the charges” had been discovered by the Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Office, WDRB reported.
Prosecutors will ask Jefferson Circuit Court Judge Olu Stevens to dismiss the case against Walker “with prejudice” on March 8 which will protect walker from ever being charged again in the future.
Holly Matkin
