Sandy MaloneLouisville, KY – Actor and comedian Tyler Perry donated $100,000 on Sunday to the legal defense fund for Breonna Taylor’s boyfriend who is defending himself from a lawsuit by the officer he shot the night she was killed.
Perry made four separate contributions totaling $100,000 on Dec. 13 to the GoFundMe set up for Kenneth Walker, CBS News reported.
The four transactions were all made within minutes of each other.
The first and second donations were for $10,000 each, the third contribution was $50,000, and the last was $30,000, Inside Edition reported.
The fundraiser was set up on Nov. 10 and had raised less than $5,000 before Perry intervened.
As of Tuesday morning, the GoFundMe for Walker had raised almost $107,000 total.
Louisville Metropolitan Police Sergeant Jonathan Mattingly filed a lawsuit against the 28-year-old Walker in late October that accused the man who shot him of battery, assault, and emotional distress, CBS News reported.
Sgt. Mattingly was serving a search warrant related to a drug investigation on Taylor’s apartment with a team of officers on March 13 when Walker opened fire and shot him in the leg.
Officers returned fire and Taylor was fatally shot.
One of the officers who fired shots that night was charged with wanton endangerment for firing into the occupied apartment next door, but the state’s investigation of the officer-involved shooting determined that the officers who returned fire at Walker were justified in fearing for their lives.
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.
He has claimed he fired one warning shot and didn’t aim at anyone.
Those charges were later dropped and Walker filed a lawsuit against the Louisville Metropolitan Police Department (LMPD) that claimed he was protected from prosecution under Stand Your Ground laws.
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.”
Sgt. Mattingly’s lawsuit claimed he has experienced “severe trauma, mental anguish, and emotional distress” since he was shot in the leg while trying to serve a search warrant at Walker’s girlfriend’s apartment.
“Walker’s conduct in shooting Mattingly is outrageous, intolerable, and offends all accepted standards of decency and morality,” attorneys cited one of the legal standards for intentional emotional distress, according to CBS News.
Sgt. Mattingly told ABC News that his family was suffering and had gone into hiding because of threats.
Walker’s lawyer, Steve Romines, called Sgt. Mattingly’s lawsuit a “baseless attempt to further victimize and harass Kenny” and insisted his client couldn’t be prosecuted under Kentucky’s Stand Your Ground law, CBS News reported.
“Kenny Walker is protected by law under KRS 503.085 and is immune from both criminal prosecution and civil liability as he was acting in self defense in his own home,” Romines said in a written statement.
In September, Sgt. Mattingly announced his intent to file lawsuits against individuals who “slandered him by calling him a ‘murderer,’” FOX News reported.
Holly Matkin
