Two years ago, Breonna Taylor was killed when police raided her home executing a no-knock warrant on Mar. 13, 2020, in Louisville, Kentucky. Taylor, a 26-year-old emergency medical technician, wasn’t the subject of the warrant, and in fact, she was sleeping when officers smashed through her door. Two years after her death, and activists are still fighting to make sure the same thing doesn’t happen again— specifically that officers can’t access no-knock warrants.
”It’s been 730 days since Breonna Taylor was shot and killed by Louisville police executing a no-knock search warrant,” civil rights attorney Ben Crump tweeted on Sunday. “We will continue to fight for justice while pushing for legislation that prevents her tragic death from happening to others!”
The attorney tweeted a petition to get 10,000 supporters to back a nationwide ban of no-knock warrants by emailing President Joe Biden’s administration. "Bre’s death prompted many promises for reform, but only 3 states and 12 cities have banned no-knock warrants," Crump's law firm wrote in the petition. "Yet, less than 2 years later in 2022, Amir Locke was killed while police executed a no-knock warrant in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Why didn’t we learn from history?"
Breonna’s Law, a ban of no-knock warrants in Louisville, was passed in 2020, but critics of the law argue it allows far too many exceptions, according to The Washington Post.
Locke, 22, was under a blanket on the couch when a SWAT team raided the home he laid in on February 2 and shot him after he appeared to reach for a gun.
And of Taylor’s death, not a single officer has been charged including former Louisville police officer Brett Hankison, who was fired for blindly firing 10 shots into Taylor’s home during the raid. He was acquitted earlier this month of all charges against him in Taylor's death.
Activist Savvy Hughes, who was 20-years-old when protests began following Taylor's death, told the Post that as a white woman she felt morally obligated to join the fight for justice. “I’ve never seen a community come together in such a way, where it didn’t matter who you were, your background, or how much money you had,” Hughes said. “We were all fighting together for one purpose.”
She told the Post she still wants to see the officers involved held accountable. The charges Hankison was actually charged with weren’t even related to Taylor’s death, but they were three counts of wanton endangerment for bullets that went through a wall to a neighboring apartment.
Taylor's boyfriend Kenneth Walker, who was also at Taylor’s home at the time of the shooting, said he didn't hear officers identify themselves and he fired a "warming" shot thinking intruders were trying to break into the home. The shot hit Sgt. Jonathan Mattingly, and Mattingly, Detective Myles Cosgrove, and Hankison fired multiple shots in return, hitting Taylor five times. Cosgrove ultimately fired the shot the FBI determined killed Taylor, the Louisville Courier-Journal reported.
Mattingly retired from the police force, and Cosgrove, Hankison, and Detective Joshua Jaynes, who secured the drug warrant, were fired, NBC News reported.
“We want to see the government try something different,” Hughes said. “We won’t ever see true justice for Breonna until we see a system that is more equitable and fair, and provides resources and support. That’s what real change is going to look like.”
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