On Monday, Louisville Metro reached a $2 million settlement with Breonna Taylor’s boyfriend, Kenneth Walker.
According to the Courier-Journal, Sgt. Jonathan Mattingly, the officer Walker shot when Louisville Metro Police barged into Taylor and Walker’s apartment unannounced, confirmed the settlement to the outlet.
Some of the officers listed in the lawsuit were dropped from the case without the requirement to make payments, including officer Kelly Goodlett who pleaded guilty in August to falsifying police information in a police report.
News Onyx reported that Taylor died on March 13, 2020, after LMPD officers, including Goodlett, Joshua Jaynes, Sgt. Kyle Meany and Brett Hankinson barged into Taylor and Walker’s home without announcing themselves. The 28-year-old admitted that he fired his legally registered firearm once while under the assumption that it was an intruder. Officer Mattingly was hit in the leg, causing officers to fire 22 shots into the apartment, killing Taylor.
Hankinson fired an additional 10 shots (six of them hitting Taylor), causing him to face federal charges for violating Taylor’s civil rights.
Lawyers argued that an officer most likely shot Mattingly and not Walker because of the “various angles” police were shooting.
To make matters worse, Taylor and Walker weren’t the raid’s target. Police were looking for her ex-boyfriend Jamarcus Glover, who police arrested that night. Jaynes and Goodlett tried to cover up their mistake by lying in the affidavit, claiming a postal inspector confirmed that Taylor received packages from Glover. But the same postal inspector denied the claims.
Goodlett admitted that after the postal inspector refuted their claims, she met Jaynes in a parking garage to ensure they were both “on the same page.” She also revealed that Meany knew about the false claim.
Mattingly sued Walker for “severe trauma, mental anguish, and emotional distress” after getting shot, but the court found Walker in favor in March 2021.
Walker filed two lawsuits in September 2020 in federal and state courts. In the complaints, he argued that officers failed to announce themselves before entering the apartment and unnecessarily used excessive force. He also stated that police violated his rights when police approved the false search warrant.
