March 13, 2025, marks five years since the police killed Breonna Taylor in her own home. Five years since we chanted her name in the streets. Five years since her family, this city and this country first demanded justice. So, where do we stand today?
The unfortunate truth is that Louisville has seen little progress. With the initial momentum in 2020, we were able to ban no-knock warrants with Breonna’s Law. In 2021, we had a similar law at the state level making changes to the no-knock warrants process. There was a financial settlement between Louisville Metro Government and Breonna’s family. There were other policy changes, like housing credits for officers to live in certain ZIP codes, but we have no real sense of their impact. The U.S. Department of Justice investigated the Louisville Metro Police Department and found systemic failures resulting in suggested reforms negotiated and agreed to under a consent decree announced in December 2024.
We have had a Civilian Review and Accountability Board (CRAB) and an early intervention system for tracking police misconduct since 2021. Yet only now are stakeholders providing the CRAB with the information it needs to investigate instances of alleged misconduct. When the CRAB recently released its findings, city officials met them with aggressive pushback. Five years later, we have little to show in return for what citizens of this city have been through.
Rolling back civil rights protections on race, gender
After the murders of Taylor, George Floyd and so many others, we saw an urgent push nationally to hold institutions accountable. Institutions, corporations, governments across all levels sought to make their policies and practices more just. Yet, five years later, we see those same institutions supporting policies that roll back civil rights protections based on race and gender…