Breonna Taylor

Case background and investigation

Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old emergency room technician, was fatally shot in her Louisville, Kentucky apartment shortly after midnight on March 13, 2020, when Louisville Metro Police Department (LMPD) officers executed a search warrant tied to a narcotics investigation into an acquaintance who did not live there. A judge had signed a warrant that included "no-knock" authorization, but officials later stated the officers were instructed to knock and announce before entry. Whether officers adequately identified themselves before forcing the door remains disputed: police said they knocked and announced their presence, while Taylor's boyfriend Kenneth Walker and several neighbors said they heard no announcement.

Believing intruders were breaking in, Walker, a licensed gun owner, fired a single shot that struck Sergeant Jonathan Mattingly in the leg. Three officers returned fire, discharging roughly 32 rounds; investigators determined that Detective Myles Cosgrove fired the shot that killed Taylor, who was struck multiple times. Detective Brett Hankison fired 10 rounds, several of which passed through a covered patio door and window into an adjacent occupied apartment. Walker was initially charged with attempted murder of a police officer, but the charge was later dropped.

The case drew national attention amid the 2020 protests over policing and racial justice. On June 11, 2020, the Louisville Metro Council unanimously passed "Breonna's Law," banning no-knock search warrants within the city and requiring officers to use body cameras when serving warrants. In September 2020, the City of Louisville agreed to pay Taylor's estate a $12 million settlement, alongside policing reforms; the settlement did not include any admission of wrongdoing.

State criminal accountability was limited. On September 23, 2020, a Jefferson County grand jury indicted only Hankison, on three counts of first-degree wanton endangerment for the shots that entered the neighboring apartment; no officer was charged in connection with Taylor's death. Two grand jurors publicly stated that homicide charges were never presented to them for consideration. On March 3, 2022, a state jury acquitted Hankison of all three wanton-endangerment counts.

Federal prosecutions followed. On August 4, 2022, the U.S. Department of Justice announced civil-rights charges against four current and former LMPD officers, including Hankison and detectives Joshua Jaynes, Kelly Goodlett, and Kyle Meany, largely centered on allegations that the warrant affidavit contained falsified information. Goodlett pleaded guilty on August 23, 2022, to a conspiracy charge, becoming the first officer convicted in the case. Hankison's first federal trial ended in a mistrial on November 16, 2023, when jurors could not reach a verdict. At a retrial, a federal jury convicted him on November 1, 2024, of one count of violating Taylor's civil rights through excessive force, the first conviction of an officer for the raid itself. On July 21, 2025, a federal judge sentenced Hankison to 33 months (two years and nine months) in prison followed by three years of supervised release, rejecting a DOJ recommendation of no prison time. Hankison appealed the sentence in August 2025. The recorded status of "No Conviction" reflects that no one was convicted for causing Taylor's death itself; the officers who fired the fatal and other rounds during the raid were not charged with her killing.