In an exclusive broadcast interview with “CBS This Morning” co-host Gayle King, Breonna Taylor’s boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, shares the details of the night she was fatally shot by police in her own home. From the knock on the door to the barrage of bullets to the 911 call and his arrest, Walker describes what he says happened that night.
On March 13, Breonna Taylor was shot and killed by police while they were executing a search warrant for a drug case connected to Taylor’s ex-boyfriend, Jamarcus Glover. Walker was with her the night of the shooting and he remains adamant that police never identified themselves before the fatal shooting.
Walker told King both he and Taylor asked “several times” who was on the other side of the apartment door when police began knocking. “And there was no response. So the next thing I know the door is flying open,” he told King.
Taylor, a 26-year old emergency medical worker, was shot at least five times.
In September, a grand jury agreed with the attorney general’s recommendation not to charge anyone directly in Taylor’s death. Now-fired Louisville police officer Brett Hankison was indicted on wanton endangerment charges for firing shots into a neighbor’s apartment during the raid. Walker was initially charged with attempted murder for allegedly hitting an officer in the thigh when he fired his gun, but those charges have since been dismissed.
Police claimed they identified themselves before entering the apartment. In an interview recorded the day of the shooting and later played for a grand jury, Louisville police Lieutenant Shawn Hoover said they “knocked on the door, said ‘police,’ waited, I don’t know, 10 or 15 seconds, knocked again, said ‘police,’ waited even longer.”
“So it was the third time that we were approaching, it had been like 45 seconds if not a minute,” Hoover said. “And then I said, `Let’s go, let’s breach it.'”
But Walker tells a very different story.
“It was dead silent in the house,” he explained to King. “And it was 12:00, 1:00 at night, or whatever time. So it was — it’s always quiet. We live in a quiet place. So if somebody was on the other side of the door saying anything, we would hear them.”
When pressed if he was certain, Walker said “I’m a million percent sure that nobody identified themselves.” Walker, a licensed gun-owner, said this is what caused him to open fire.
“That’s why I grabbed the gun. Didn’t have a clue,” Walker said. “I mean, if it was the police at the door, and they just said, ‘We’re the police,’ me or Breonna didn’t have a reason at all not to open the door to see what they wanted.”
No drugs were found in Taylor’s apartment and Glover has said Taylor had never been involved in any drug trading.
“That’s why I never thought it was the police. Because why would the police be coming here?” Walker said.
King’s exclusive interview with Walker airs Wednesday on “CBS This Morning” at 7 a.m. on CBS.
