LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Recent revelations about the search warrant that led to Breonna Taylor’s death have reopened old wounds in Louisville’s Black community and disrupted the city’s efforts to restore trust in the police department.
Former Louisville officer Kelly Goodlett admitted in federal court that she and another officer falsified information in the warrant. That confirmed to many, including U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland, that Taylor never should have been visited by armed officers on March 13, 2020.
Protest leaders who took to the streets of Kentucky’s largest city after she was fatally shot by police say Goodlett’s confession confirms their suspicions that Louisville police can’t be trusted and that systemic issues run deep. They say officers abused demonstrators after the botched raid, and that her fatal shooting is just one of many reasons why the community remains wary.
“What bothers me so incredibly is that so many lives were lost because of this lie,” said Hannah Drake, a Louisville poet and leader in a push for justice after Taylor’s death. “They don’t even understand the far-reaching tentacles of what they did.”
More than once during that long, hot summer, individual officers escalated rather than calmed a situation. An officer who shot into a restaurant, injuring one, was fired after taunting demonstrators on social media, daring them to challenge the police. Another Louisville officer faces a federal charge over hitting a kneeling protester in the back of the head with a baton.
“We were right to protest,” Louisville Urban League President Sadiqa Reynolds tweeted shortly after Goodlett’s plea. “People are dead and lives upended because of a pile of lies.”
Some Louisville officers have been disciplined, fired and even charged with crimes for abusing protesters, in addition to the four officers now charged federally in relation to the botched raid. But the problems can’t be blamed on a few rogue officers, according to a lawsuit brought by Taylor’s white neighbors, who were nearly hit by gunfire during the raid.
They accuse the department of having a “warrior culture” and cultivating an “us vs. them” mentality. And the family of a Black man shot dead in his restaurant’s kitchen by law enforcement says in a lawsuit that police aggression during a curfew instigated his death.
Louisville is working on numerous reforms, implementing a new 911 diversion program, increasing leadership reviews of search warrant requests and improving officer training. The city has outlawed “no knock” warrants, conducted an independent audit and paid Taylor’s mother $12 million in a civil settlement. A new police chief, Erika Shields, was hired in 2021.
Such reforms have been implemented amid a continuing U.S. Department of Justice investigation of Louisville’s policing practices.
The chief called Taylor’s death “horrific” and said in an interview with The Associated Press that she welcomes the federal investigations, which led to charges against Goodlett and the other officers. “I think we’re in an important place that was necessary to get to, before we move on,” Shields said.
Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron’s investigation ended without any officers being charged directly in Taylor’s death. It took federal prosecutors to convict Goodlett — she pleaded guilty to conspiracy and admitted to helping create a phony link between Taylor and a wanted drug dealer.
Goodlett resigned the day before her charges were announced in August and awaits sentencing next month.
