Jonathan Mattingly, the Louisville police officer involved in killing Breonna Taylor, is suing her boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, for shooting him in the leg during the fatal raid. Mattingly filed a countersuit against Walker accusing him of emotional distress, assault, and battery.
Walker, a licensed-gun owner, shot Mattingly (a sergeant with the Louisville Metro Police Department who led the March raid on Taylor’s home) in the leg after police barged through Taylor’s door in the middle of the night. In an email to the Courier-Journal on Thursday (Oct. 29), Mattingly’s attorney claimed that Walker “nearly killed” his client the night that Louisville police killed Taylor.
Authorities claim that they announced themselves, but Walker pointed out that if he had known police were behind the barrage of bullets, he would not have called 911. Authorities arrested Walker on attempted murder charges for shooting Mattingly. The charges were later dropped.
In an effort to prevent police from arresting him again, Walker filed a civil rights lawsuit against the city and the police department last month. He is claiming immunity under Kentucky’s Stand Your Ground law.
Mattingly’s complaint alleges that Walker shot him “willingly or maliciously.” The lawsuit demands compensatory, damages for medical treatment, trauma, physical pain and mental anguish, and punitive damages.
In reaction to the lawsuit, Walker’s lawyer Steven Romines stated that Walker acted in self-defense and is therefore immune from civil liability and criminal prosecution. “Even the most basic understanding of Kentucky’s Stand Your Ground law and the ‘Castle Doctrine’ evidence this fact. One would think that breaking into the apartment, executing his girlfriend and framing him for a crime in an effort to cover up her murder would be enough for them. Yet this baseless attempt to further victimize and harass Kenny indicated otherwise.”