Breonna Taylor

Breonna Taylor, 26, an emergency room technician, was shot and killed by Louisville Metro Police officers executing a no-knock search warrant at her apartment shortly after midnight on March 13, 2020. The warrant was later found to have been based on falsified information. Taylor's boyfriend, believing intruders had broken in, fired a shot that struck an officer; police returned more than 30 rounds, killing Taylor. A local grand jury declined to charge any officer for her death. The U.S. Department of Justice later brought federal civil rights charges against four current and former officers; only one, Brett Hankison, was convicted, for firing blindly into the apartment — not for killing Taylor, since his shots never struck her. No one has ever been charged with, or convicted of, causing Taylor's death itself.

Louisville, KY · Jefferson County County

• 2020: Case opens — victim reported missing or found.
• Documented milestones (renewed investigation, media coverage, family advocacy) to be added as sourced.
• Present: case remains unresolved. No named suspect has been convicted.

• The raid, the warrant, and Taylor's death, per Louisville Metro Police Department records and the subsequent federal investigation.
• A Jefferson County grand jury in September 2020 declined to charge any officer with Taylor's death; one officer, Hankison, was indicted only on charges of endangering her neighbors, and was acquitted of those state charges at trial in 2022.
• In 2022, the FBI arrested and the DOJ federally charged four current and former officers with civil rights violations connected to the raid and the falsified warrant.
• Hankison was convicted by a federal jury in November 2024 on one count of violating Taylor's civil rights for firing 10 shots blindly through a covered window; the jury separately cleared him of a charge involving her neighbors.
• The Department of Justice's own sentencing memo, filed under a later administration, stated Hankison “did not shoot Ms. Taylor and is not otherwise responsible for her death,” and recommended a one-day sentence; the judge sentenced him to roughly 33 months instead.
• No officer has ever been charged with or convicted of causing Taylor's death.

• Which specific officer's bullet caused Taylor's fatal wounds has never been the basis of any criminal charge.
• The full extent of what individual officers knew about the falsified warrant application before the raid was disputed across the various proceedings.
• The outcomes of the other federally charged officers' cases, including one whose state charges were dismissed by a federal judge in 2026, remain only partially resolved.

• U.S. Department of Justice — “Former Louisville... Officer Found Guilty of Federal Civil Rights Crimes”
• Al Jazeera — “US police officer in Breonna Taylor death sentenced to 33 months” (2025)
• PBS NewsHour / AP — “Ex-Louisville officer convicted of using excessive force on Breonna Taylor”
• Project Cold Case
• Murder Accountability Project
• NamUs