Kenneth Walker Speaks to Gayle King

Content warning: In-depth discussion of murder of a Black woman by police officers

Gayle King: We have an exclusive interview with Breonna Taylor’s boyfriend. His name is Kenneth Walker. Now, he was with Taylor when she was killed by Louisville police officers on March 13th. He told us that they were in bed watching a movie when police raided the apartment as part of a narcotics investigation that was targeting her ex-boyfriend.

We should point out that Kenneth Walker and Breonna Taylor do not have a criminal history and no illegal drugs were found in that home. We went to Louisville over the weekend to talk to Kenneth Walker about that night.

Kenneth Walker: To the world, she’s just a hashtag, a picture and all of that, but to me it was much more.

King: Yeah.

Walker: More than a girlfriend, too. I think that’s what I want the world to know the most. That was my best friend. The most important person to me pretty much on the earth. And they took her.

King: Let’s go back to that day. What kind of day was it for you two?

Walker: It was a normal day. It was a relaxed day. Really just chillin’ and just bein’ us. You know, we went on a date, went out to eat, went back in the house. Playin’ UNO, watchin’ a movie.

King: Take us to that moment when your life really changed for ever.

Walker: It was a loud bang at the door and no, nobody was responding when we were saying, “Who is it?”

King: You all did ask, “Who is it?”

Walker: Several times. Several times, both of us. And there was no response.

King: You know, the police say that they said, several times, “It’s the police.”

Walker: If they had said who it was and knocked on the door, we could, we could hear ‘em. But it was dead silent. I’m a million percent sure that nobody identified themselves.

King: So the next thing you hear, the door flies off the hinges. Are you feeling afraid?

Walker: Deathly afraid. But I don’t have much room to be afraid ‘cuz I’ve got somebody here that I gotta take care of.

King: So you hear the heavy knocking and what do you do?

Walker: So now at that point we’re getting up to put on clothes, make ourselves decent to answer the door. Then I grab my gun.

King: We should also say you were licensed to carry the gun.

Walker: For sure. That was the one time I had to use it. 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 and see what they wanted.

King: So the doors, the doors fly off the hinges—

Walker: I—I let out one shot, and, you know, I’m figuring somebody’s trying to break in or somethin’, they’re not gonna want to do anything after that.

King: And after that, what happens?

Walker: You know, I don’t think I ever heard so many gunshots. Like, all at the same time. I’ve never been to war but I assume that’s what war probably sounds like.

King: One officer fired six shots, Officer Mattingly, Officer Cosgrove fired 16 shots, Officer Hankison fired 10 shots. That is a lot of firepower.

Walker: I still try to make sense of it to this day. There was definitely—there was definitely nowhere to hide. There’s bullets coming in every direction.

King: When did you realize that Breonna had been shot?

Walker: I guess in the middle of all the gunfire, like, she screamed. But like, I was holding her hand, like—

King: You were holding her hand?

Walker: Yeah, like while this was happening. I pulled her down to the ground. But, you know, she was just scared, so she just didn’t get down.

King: So in the middle of all of this, you realize she’s been hit. Was she alive at the time?

Walker: She was, still, even when all the gunfire stopped. She was, like, bleeding and stuff, and I was holding her. And that’s when I called my mom.

King: You called your mom first?

Walker: Yeah, I told her that somebody just kicked in the door and shot Breonna. And she’s—she’s freakin’ out at this point but she told me to call 911 so I did.

[Cut to audio footage from 911 call.]

911 Dispatcher [voiceover]: 911 operator, Harris, where’s the emergency?

Walker [voiceover]: I don’t know what is happening. Somebody kicked in the door and shot my girlfriend.

Gayle King: While you’re on the phone, you don’t know it’s the police.

Kenneth Walker: I didn’t know it was the police. Nah, I didn’t know, I even proceeded to tell 911 that, you know, somebody just kicked in the door and shot my girlfriend, you know. If I knew who it was, I would’ve said the police. Or I wouldn’t have been callin’ the police on the police. Like, that doesn’t even make sense.

[Cut to audio footage from 911 call.]

911 Dispatcher [voiceover]: Where was she shot at?

Walker [voiceover]: I don’t know. She’s on the ground right now. I don’t know.

911 Dispatcher [voiceover]: Is she alert and able to talk to you?

Walker [voiceover]: No, she’s not. Bre? Oh my god!

Kenneth Walker: In the midst of me talking to 911, I’m like, “Well, Breonna’s mama should know about this too.” I hung up on them and called her mama.

Gayle King: The police didn’t come rushing in?

Walker: No, not at all. I don’t think I realized that it was the police until I was on the phone with Breonna’s mom. I heard, like, people outside talking. I thought they was, you know, coming for help ‘cause I called 911.

King: So you think they’re coming to help you.

Walker: Yes. So when I come outside, there’s guns pointed at me, you know, I’m being threatened with dogs and whatever else.

[Video footage from outside Walker’s home.]

Police officer: [Indiscernible]

[Dog barking.]

Police officer: Put your hands behind your head!

[Dogs barking.]

Walker: Ow, ow, ow! What’s going on?

Police officer: You’re going to [bleep]ing prison, that’s what’s going on.

[Return to interview]

Kenneth Walker: The officer was asking me, was I hit by any bullets? I said, “No,” he said, “That’s unfortunate.” So that threw me off too, like, what’s he mean by that?

Gayle King: “That’s unfortunate,” he said to you—

Walker: Mhmmm.

King: after you’ve just lost your girlfriend and you don’t know what’s happening. What did you think when he said that?

Walker: I didn’t know what to think and I really wasn’t worried about me. The only reason I’m even out here is because the only way for her to get help in there is for me to be out here.

[Video footage from Walker’s arrest.]

Walker: We were scared! We didn’t know who it was!

Police officer: Walk! Walk!

Walker: We didn’t even know who it was!

[Return to interview.]

Kenneth Walker: Then I was in the back of the car. I got drug all the way down the street. It was cold, it was wet. I didn’t have any socks and shoes, gravel, rocks and everything, and they was just dragging me. Like I had scabs and stuff on me feet from that.

Gayle King: When they take you to the police station, still no socks aand shoes.

Walker: Still no socks and shoes. And when we finally left the scene, we pulled over in like a random parking lot on [indiscernible] Street at the bottom of the hill down the street from Breonna’s apartment, and another officer in an unmarked car, and he wasn’t in uniform and stuff, he came to my window. And his tone was way different than everybody else’s who was just on the scene.

King: How so? Different how?

Walker: He told me that this was, that this was a misunderstanding and we’re gonna get to the bottom of it and askin’ me did I need anything, did I need water and this and that.

[Video footage from Walker’s arrest.]

Police officer 2: Hey, partner, can I get your name?

Walker: Kenneth Walker.

Police officer 2: Kenneth Walker? There was a little bit of miscommunication. I wanted to talk to you before they left.

[Return to interview.]

Walker: Then when I got to the police headquarters or whatever it was, they took the handcuffs off me and everything. I was walking around, went to the bathroom.

 [Video footage from Walker’s arrest.]

Police officer: Go ahead, when you get there take the handcuffs off.

[Return to interview.]

Walker: So clearly, I know something’s wrong. ‘Cuz you don’t—

King: You’re allowed to move freely.

Walker: Yeah, you don’t allegedly shoot at a—shoot a police officer and they take the handcuffs off you.

King: Were you surprised to hear you were accused of shooting a police officer?

Walker: I definitely was surprised. But I was more concerned about, “Is he ok? Is Breonna ok?” I still didn’t even know if she was alive or not.

King: So when did officers tell you you were going to be charged with attempted murder? When did you hear that?

Walker: Maybe like 5 or 6 in the morning that same night.

King: What did you think?

Walker: I was worried about if Breonna was okay or not.

King: When were you finally told that Breonna didn’t make it?

Walker: I never really got told, like, directly. I saw it on the news.

King: And that’s how you heard Breonna Taylor died? On the news?

Walker: Pretty much. Yeah, I was in the cell and it was, like, on the news and they said one, you know, female dead and confirmed it. I didn’t know for sure what condition, you know, she was in when I left, so I didn’t know what they did, and as these bodycam videos and stuff come out, I see they did nothing.

[Footage of SWAT team entering the home, noise of them entering.]

Walker: You see the SWAT team in there and she was still in there. They’re still casing the apartment with her laying right there on the ground.

Police officer: This is now aa crime scene. Let’s go ahead and move out. Alright, she’s done.

[Return to interview.]

Walker: Disrespectful.

King: Do you think if you had not survived this incident, that we would be hearing the story that we’re hearing today? If you had not survived it.

Walker: Definitely not. There wouldn’t be a story. You probably wouldn’t even know about it. If I didn’t live, you probably wouldn’t even know about Breonna Taylor.

King: Breonna Taylor or Kenny Walker.

Walker: Or Kenny Walker. I don’t want everybody know about Kenny Walker as long as everybody knows Breonna Taylor.

King: And what do you want us to know about Breonna Taylor?

Walker: Just, she would do anything for anybody. She took care of a lot of people. There’s a lot of people that need her bad right now, including me.

[End of interview.]

King: A grand jury accepted the Kentucky Attorney General’s recommendation not to charge any officers for Breonna Taylor’s death. Both the Louisville Metro Police Department and attorneys for three individual officers involved declined our request for interviews or for comment.