Breonna Taylor Wiki – Biography
Breonna Taylor was a 26-year-old Emergency Medical Technician (EMT) who was shot and killed by Louisville Metro Police officers on March 13 during a raid on her home where her boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, was also sleeping.
She graduated from Western High School in 2011 and went on to study at the University of Kentucky. Taylor became an EMT for the city of Louisville, and she also worked at two local hospitals. Taylor was a full-time ER Technician for the University of Louisville Jewish Hospital and she was a PRN (as needed) for Norton Healthcare.
On her Facebook page, Taylor described her love for being able to help others. “Working in health care is so rewarding! It makes me so happy when I know I’ve made a difference in someone else’s life!” she said.
Breonna Taylor Age
Breonna Taylor was 26 years old. She was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan on June 5, 1993, to Tamika Palmer and Trory Herrod, according to her obituary.
Suspect
Kenneth Walker, 27, was arrested and charged with attempted murder and assault for shooting Sgt. John Mattingly; Mattingly survived and underwent surgery for his injuries. He pleaded not guilty and his lawyer argued that he acted in self-defense because he didn’t know who was at the door.
“Had Mr. Walker known that police were outside he would have opened the door and ushered them in,” Eggert told the Courier Journal, adding that no drugs were found, the home belonged to Taylor and Walker wasn’t even the target of the police’s search warrant. Sam Aguiar, a lawyer for Taylor’s family, told WDRB that it was a case of misidentification and that he believed officers were looking for someone else connected to a different raid.
“Something went terribly wrong,” he said. “This was clearly a botched execution of a warrant.” Walker was being held on a $250,000 full cash bond, yet Jefferson Circuit Court Judge Olu Stevens released him to home incarceration, to the outrage of the police union.
Cause of Death
According to reports from the local WDRB TV station, officers from the Louisville Metro Police Department’s Criminal Interdiction Division used a battering ram to break down the door and rushed into the house on Springfield Drive at 1 a.m., waking Taylor and her boyfriend, Walker. Walker shot at the officers, wounding one, and the three who entered some 22 shots fired back, according to Eggert, Walker’s defense attorney; Taylor was shot eight times and died.
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Initial reports from the Louisville Courier-Journal have police describing Taylor as “a female suspect”: “A Louisville Metro Police sergeant was shot and wounded and a suspect was killed early Friday during a narcotics investigation near St. Andrews Church Road and Doss High School, according to authorities.”
According to Walker’s lawyer, Walker shot back in self-defense because he said police did not announce themselves. His lawyer wrote to the court that Walker “wishes to exonerate himself. His girlfriend was killed in a hail of police bullets while naked and he himself simply acted to try to protect himself.”
Taylor’s aunt, Bianca Austin, told local TV station WHAS-11, “This is not a woman who would sacrifice her life and her family morals and values to sell drugs on the street,” Bonica Austin, Taylor’s aunt, said.
Investigation Report
In an email to WDRB, Chief Steve Conrad declined to discuss the “incident that resulted in Ms. Taylor’s death” due to the pending Public Integrity investigation. However, he did note that no camera footage was available for the incident, because Criminal Interdiction Division officers do not wear them.
Mattingly, Det. Myles Cosgrove and Det. Brent Hankison has all been placed on administrative leave. One of them, Cosgrove, was sued for excessive force by a man he shot in 2006 at a Speedway gas station; Cosgrove won the suit.
At a press conference held 15 hours after the shooting, Conrad said, “We are extremely fortunate that our officer John Mattingly was not more seriously injured. We have no body-worn video cameras to share with you; this incident as related to the execution of a search warrant … even without the videos, our Public Integrity Unit will conduct a complete review of this case.”
Lt. Ted Eidem of the Public Integrity Unit also spoke at the press conference and said, “Officers knocked on their door several times and announced themselves as police who were there with a search warrant. The officers gained entry through the exterior door and automatically received gunfire.”