Breonna Taylor’s boyfriend shares the moment he found out she had been killed
Kenny Walker, the boyfriend of Breonna Taylor, has opened up in an emotional interview about the stunning moment he learned she had been killed by police.
Walker, who is the only witness to Taylor’s death outside the police officers present, spoke to hosts Jada Pinkett Smith, Willow Smith and Adrienne Banfield Norris on the latest episode of Facebook Live’s “Red Table Talk” released on Tuesday.
In a preview clip of the episode shared exclusively with TODAY, Walker talks about how he found out Taylor, a 26-year-old Black medical worker, had been killed in a botched early-morning raid by police in Kentucky in 2020.
While executing a drug search warrant at Taylor’s apartment in Louisville, officers opened fire after Walker, believing an intruder was trying to break in, fired a gun toward the door. Walker said he did not know Taylor had died in the shooting when he was immediately taken into custody by police.
He said on “Red Table Talk” that it was between 5 and 7 a.m. later that morning when he was being processed into jail and questioned by police that he found out that his girlfriend had been killed.
“Now I’m knowing what they’re probably accusing me of at this point, so I’m scared,” he said. “They’re trying to ask me questions about me, and I’m like, ‘Listen, I’ll get to that. Where is Breonna? Is Breonna OK? Is she alive?’
“Nobody is answering my questions. So I had to find out what happened on the news, sitting in jail. They didn’t say her name, but they said a woman was killed. That’s how I found out.”
Walker was charged with attempted murder of a police officer and assault, but the charges were dropped in May 2020 after the case drew national attention. Louisville police have not publicly commented on his latest statements.
The “Red Table Talk” episode, which also features Taylor’s mother and sister, includes Walker offering a minute-by-minute account of what happened that night by using body camera footage obtained from police.
In August, four former Louisville police officers were federally charged with violating Taylor’s civil rights in the raid that led to her death.
Former detective Kelly Goodlett and former Sgt. Kyle Meany were charged with falsifying an affidavit. Brett Hankison, who was the only one of the four who was present at the raid, was charged with using excessive force while executing the search warrant in a separate indictment.
Former detective Joshua Jaynes, who obtained the search warrant, is accused of misleading investigators probing the shooting, NBC News reported in August.
Jaynes, Meany and Hankison have all been fired by the Louisville Metro Police Department, and Goodlett resigned after the charges were announced. Hankison, Jaynes and Meany face a maximum sentence of life in prison for the civil rights charges. They pleaded not guilty in federal court in August.
Goodlett pleaded guilty in August to a federal conspiracy charge for helping falsify the warrant that led to the deadly raid. Federal investigators said she added a false line to the warrant and conspired with another detective to create a cover story when Taylor’s death began gaining national attention. She will be sentenced on Nov. 22 and faces up to five years in prison.
The raid targeted Taylor’s ex-boyfriend, Jamarcus Glover, a convicted drug dealer who was not in the apartment at the time, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said in announcing the charges in August. Glover has said Taylor had no involvement in the drug trade, NBC News reported.
After Walker fired and struck an officer he said he thought was an intruder, two officers fired 22 shots, one of which fatally struck Taylor in the chest. Walker lawfully possessed the gun, Garland said.
“The federal charges announced today allege that members of the Place-Based Investigations unit falsified the affidavit used to obtain the search warrant of Ms. Taylor’s home,” Garland said.
He added that “this act violated federal civil rights laws and that those violations resulted in Ms. Taylor’s death.”
