The death of 26-year-old Breonna Taylor, an emergency room technician — along with that of George Floyd and others — sparked nationwide protests in 2020, leading to changes in policing policy and laws.
Here’s what happened during the botched raid that caused her death:
On March 12, 2020, a Jefferson County Circuit Court judge approved five search warrants for locations linked to Taylor’s ex-boyfriend, a convicted felon suspected of supplying a local drug house. One of those locations was Taylor’s residence.
In the early hours of March 13, ex-detective Brett Hankison and other officers executed a warrant at Taylor’s apartment. Taylor was in bed with her boyfriend, Kenneth Walker III, when the officers announced their presence and then battered down the front door.
Taylor and Walker yelled to ask who was at the door but got no response, Walker said afterward. Thinking they were intruders, Walker grabbed a gun he legally owned and fired a shot when the officers broke through the door.
That triggered a volley of fire from the officers. Taylor, who was standing in a hallway with Walker, was shot multiple times. Walker was not injured.
“Somebody kicked in the door and shot my girlfriend,” Walker said in a 911 call.
Hankison had been standing outside the apartment and is accused of blindly firing through a door and a window. His bullets entered a neighboring apartment, where a pregnant woman, a man and a child were home, according to the state attorney general.
None of the police officers at the raid were wearing body cameras, and there is no video of the night Taylor bled to death in her hallway.
