911 call from Breonna Taylor shooting released: ‘Somebody kicked in the door and shot my girlfriend’
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Audio of a frantic 911 call made in the aftermath of the fatal police shooting of Breonna Taylor was obtained by an attorney for Taylor’s family.
Kenneth Walker, 27, is heard crying out Taylor’s name as he tries to explain to a dispatcher what happened.
“I don’t know what is happening,” Walker said. “Somebody kicked in the door and shot my girlfriend.”
Sam Aguiar, an attorney for Taylor’s family, released the audio to The Louisville Courier Journal of the USA TODAY Network.
“Listening to that call is one of the most difficult things I’ve ever had to do as an attorney and as a person,” Aguiar said. “The call appears to vindicate Kenneth Walker and what he’s been saying all along. He had no idea that police were in the home. His primary concern was the love of his life.
“I couldn’t imagine ever being placed in a situation like that, and Kenneth Walker’s character is second to none with how he was handling that horrible situation.”
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A frantic 911 call
Louisville’s dispatch agency, MetroSafe, rejected a Courier Journal records request for the 911 recordings from Taylor’s apartment that night. An appeal with the attorney general’s office is pending, and a Metro Council resolution likely to be voted on Thursday evening calls on Mayor Greg Fischer’s administration to release the recording.
“It’s important to get as many facts out to the public as possible so that they can digest the information and what did or did not happen – right or wrong – using factual information,” Metro Council President David James, D-6th District, told The Courier Journal on Thursday.
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Taylor, 26, was shot and killed by Louisville Metro Police officers as they attempted to enter her home on a search warrant relating to a narcotics investigation. Police said they knocked and announced, but Walker said he did not hear police identify themselves and fired a warning shot, striking an officer in the thigh.
When not speaking to the dispatcher, Walker can be heard yelling for help and calling, “Oh my God!”
The dispatcher asks Walker where Taylor was shot.
“I don’t know,” Walker says, crying. “She’s on the ground right now. I don’t know.”
The dispatcher asks if Taylor is awake and able to speak.
“No, she’s not,” Walker said. “Bree!”
When the dispatcher again asks if Walker knows where Taylor was shot, he says he thinks it was in the stomach.
She asks if Walker can turn her over and see where she was shot.
Walker describes seeing blood and cries out again, “Oh my God!”
Walker hangs up the call. Dispatch tries to call back, but there’s no answer.
The whole conversation happened in less than three minutes.
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Walker was charged with the attempted murder of a police officer and assault for firing the shot, but prosecutors announced on May 22 they were dismissing the charges, citing the need for more evidence.
In snippets of police interviews made public by the Commonwealth’s Attorney Tom Wine on May 22, Walker told police he called 911 after the shooting and before he left the apartment and was arrested.
He explained in the recording that he called his mother first, who told him to call 911. He described giving the dispatcher his name, location and a brief description of what happened, before hanging up to call Taylor’s mother.
“When I was on the phone with her, that’s when I kind of realized that it was the police,” Walker said in the recording before it abruptly cut off.
Follow reporter Darcy Costello (@dctello) and Tessa Duvall (@TessaDuvall) on Twitter.
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