The Louisville police officer shot in the leg as he fired gunshots that killed Breonna Taylor is filing a lawsuit against Taylor’s boyfriend for shooting him in the leg during the invasion of the couple’s apartment, Yahoo News reports.
Kenneth Walker, Taylor’s boyfriend, drew a legally-owned handgun as two officers broke down the door of the apartment. He fired one shot, which hit Sgt. Jonathan Mattingly in the leg. Mattingly claimed Walker acted recklessly in defending his home and his girlfriend from the intruders.
Mattingly and two other officers fired more than two dozen rounds into Taylor’s apartment, hitting the unarmed Taylor six times and killing her. Walker was not shot.
Walker and another dozen witnesses testified in grand jury proceedings that the officers did not announce they were police before invading the apartment. One witness heard police announce once; the officers testified that they knocked and announced themselves at least three times over at least one minute.
One of the people involved in the raid, Brett Hankison, has been fired from the police force and is charged with three counts of wanton endangerment for firing blindly into the apartment, sending bullets into a neighboring residence where three people slept.
Mattingly and the other officers are shielded from a civil lawsuit due to the qualified immunity they enjoy as police officers.