Killing of Breonna Taylor

On March 13, 2020, Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old Black American woman, was fatally shot in her Louisville, Kentucky apartment when at least seven police officers forced entry into the apartment as part of an investigation into drug dealing operations. Three Louisville Metro Police Department (LMPD) officers—Jonathan Mattingly, Brett Hankison, and Myles Cosgrove—were involved in the shooting. Taylor's boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, was inside the apartment with her when the plainclothes officers knocked on the door and then forced entry. The officers said that they announced themselves as police before forcing entry, but Walker said he did not hear any announcement, thought the officers were intruders, and fired a warning shot at them. The shot hit Mattingly in the leg, and the officers fired 32 shots in return. Walker was unhurt but Taylor, who was behind Walker, was hit by six bullets and died. During the incident, Hankison moved to the side of the apartment and shot 10 bullets through a covered window and glass door. According to police, Taylor's home was never searched.

Walker was charged with assault and attempted murder of a police officer, but the charges were dismissed with prejudice a year later. In June 2020, the LMPD fired Hankison for blindly firing through the covered patio door and window of Taylor's apartment. In September, the city of Louisville agreed to pay Taylor's family $12 million and reform police practices. Cosgrove was determined to have fired the fatal shot that killed Taylor, and in 2021, the LMPD fired him.

Further in September, a state grand jury indicted Hankison on three counts of felony first-degree wanton endangerment for endangering Taylor's neighbors with his shots. In October, recordings from the grand jury investigation into the shooting were released. Two of the jurors released a statement saying that the grand jury was not presented with homicide charges against the officers. Several jurors have also accused Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron and the police of covering up what happened. On March 3, 2022, Hankison was acquitted of the endangerment charges by a jury in Kentucky v. Hankison.

On August 4, Attorney-General Merrick Garland announced the Department of Justice was charging Hankison with the unconstitutional use of excessive force that violated Taylor's civil rights. Hankison's federal trial began in October 2023, and concluded as a mistrial in November 2023; a retrial has been scheduled for October 2024. Three other officers, Kyle Meany, Joshua Jaynes, and Kelly Goodlett— who were not present at the shooting— were federally charged with conspiracy, obstruction of justice, and civil rights violations for conspiring to mislead the judge who approved the search warrant on Walker's house, then covering it up. Goodlett pleaded guilty to two counts of conspiracy.

The killing of Taylor by white police officers, and the initial lack of charges against the LMPD officers involved sparked numerous protests with supporters adopting the motto #SayHerName. These protests against police brutality and racism were concurrent with the ongoing Black Lives Matter movement across the United States. The civil unrest was exacerbated when the grand jury was not presented with the option to indict the officers with the homicide of Taylor.