LOUISVILLE, Ky.—Police said they knocked and announced themselves for a minute or more before bursting into Breonna Taylor’s apartment, but her boyfriend said he did not hear officers identify themselves, according to Kentucky grand jury recordings released Friday. In the hail of gunfire that ensued, the 26-year-old black woman was killed.
The dramatic and sometimes conflicting accounts of the March 13 raid are key to a case that has fueled nationwide protests. When police came through the door using a battering ram, Taylor’s boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, fired once. He acknowledges that he may not have heard police identify themselves because of where he was in the apartment. If he’d heard them, “it changes the whole situation because there’s nothing for us to be scared of.”
