The two people who loved her most, Kenneth Walker and Tamika Palmer, recall the life and death of Breonna Taylor.
by Mauve Maude
October 20, 2020
On a cold night in Kentucky, Kenneth Walker was watching a movie at his girlfriend’s apartment after they’d been out on a date. Her younger sister, who lived with her, was out of town. It was after midnight, and the couple were lying down in the back bedroom, when they suddenly heard a loud banging at the front door. As they scrambled to see what was going on, they called out to whomever was banging on the door to identify themselves. They didn’t hear an answer. So Kenneth grabbed his gun, a weapon he’d never fired outside of a shooting range. As they stood in the hallway of his girlfriend’s apartment, the front door burst open. Kenneth fired a shot at their attackers, and more than thirty shots came back. When it was all over, twenty-six-year-old Breonna Taylor lay bleeding and dying on the floor of her home.
Kenneth, in shock, called his mother, then followed her instructions to call 911. Shortly thereafter, while on the phone with Breonna’s mother, he heard that the police were there. He thought they’d arrived to help. He soon discovered their door had been busted in by plainclothes police officers conducting a raid. He was arrested and charged for shooting an officer, taken barefoot from the apartment while Breonna lay inside. While in custody he was told there had been “a miscommunication”. He was not told by the police that Breonna had died. He heard it on the news.
Kenneth wanted to marry Breonna, who he called Bree. They wanted to have children.
Eventually, he learned that the “miscommunication” was this: the raid the police had conducted that night involved someone who didn’t live there, and who, in fact, was in police custody at the time, an ex-boyfriend of Breonna’s, who in the past had received mail at her address. Neither Breonna nor Kenneth were the subjects of their investigation. Breonna Taylor was an ambitious, family-oriented, young woman, an ER technician and former EMT who wanted to be a nurse. Neither she nor Kenneth, longtime friends before they began dating, had any criminal history. Kenneth wanted to marry Breonna, who he called Bree. They wanted to have children. But in the media coverage that immediately followed her death, Breonna and Kenneth were portrayed as just a couple suspects in a drug raid, who shot a police officer. As Kenneth Walker stated in his recent interview with Gayle King, if he hadn’t survived that night, America probably wouldn’t know who either of them were.
More than two months after the shooting, the very day after police officers killed George Floyd in Minnesota, charges against Kenneth were dropped without prejudice, meaning the case could be re-examined at a later time. By then, though Breonna’s family and local protesters had been demanding justice for Breonna since March, national media had only recently begun covering the story, much like the coverage of Ahmaud Arbery‘s murder in February. When George Floyd’s murder then inflamed a whole nation of protesters and more around the world, Breonna Taylor’s name and story also became famous. Protesters across the nation began to press for justice in her name as well.
In June, three months after Breonna Taylor’s death, the Louisville Metro Police Department terminated Detective Brett Hankison, who had broken protocol, firing about ten of the thirty-two shots into Breonna’s apartment. He had shot through a patio door and a window, with no sight line of the “suspects” inside. As a result, some of his bullets ended up in neighboring apartments. The two other officers involved in the shooting, Jon Mattingly, who was injured, and Myles Cosgrove, were placed on administrative reassignment.
Over the summer, as the months-long investigation continued, protesters in Louisville and across the country pushed for the officers to be charged in Breonna Taylor’s death. Finally in September, six months after Breonna Taylor was killed, a grand jury indicted Mr. Hankison on charges of wanton endangerment, for endangering the lives of Breonna’s neighbors. Sergeant Mattingly and Officer Cosgrove were not charged.
Therefore, though the Louisville Metro Government settled a $12 million civil suit with her family, Breonna Taylor’s death was deemed justified.
As Kenneth Walker tells us in his interview, that just leaves a hole in the lives of the people she loved. After a half-year of 2020, it leaves significant holes in the psyche of the nation as well.
In August, a painting of Breonna Taylor by Amy Sherald was featured on the cover of Vanity Fair magazine. In that issue, Breonna’s mother, Tamika Palmer, revealed her side of the story in this moving article by Ta-Nehisi Coates.
Part Two of this story explores the Breonna Taylor case from the perspectives of the Louisville Metro Police Department, the Louisville Metro Government, and the State of Kentucky.