Latest news with #BreonnaTaylor
The Guardian
4 days ago
- Politics
- The Guardian
The US cities left behind as Trump ends key police accountability reforms
US communities that have contended with police violence are losing a major accountability measure to curb abuse. In late May, the Trump administration's Department of Justice announced a reversal in investigations and consent decrees – agreements between federal officials to hold law enforcement agencies accountable to reform – for several major police departments. The move came years after the Biden administration launched investigations into some law enforcement agencies, specifically as racial justice protests kicked off in the summer of 2020. Louisville metro police department (LMPD) is one department that saw its justice department investigation ended, despite its high-profile police controversies. In March 2020, LMPD officers shot and killed Breonna Taylor, a 27-year-old emergency room technician, as she slept in bed with her boyfriend. Police forcibly entered Taylor's home using a 'no-knock' warrant, firing 32 bullets into Taylor's home. Taylor's death sparked international outcry as the Black Lives Matter protests spread across the world. Since 2012, LMPD has also come under scrutiny for its Violent Incident Prevention, Enforcement and Response Unit. Officers, who often wear plainclothes, were found to routinely violate the civil rights of Black and brown residents; the unit was dissolved in 2015. Following Taylor's death, the justice department launched an investigation into LMPD, determining in 2023 that it had '[engaged] in a pattern or practice of conduct that violates the U.S. Constitution and federal law', including excessive force, unlawful searches and detentions, discriminating against Black people in their enforcement. Louisville officials pledged to carry out reforms in response to the justice department's findings. A consent decree that was negotiated was still awaiting approval from a judge. But on 21 May, the Trump administration rolled back previous agreements and investigations to curb police abuse in Louisville and nearly two dozen other cities in the US. 'Today, we are ending the Biden Civil Rights Division's failed experiment of handcuffing local leaders and police departments with factually unjustified consent decrees,' said Harmeet K Dhillon, the head of the justice department's civil rights division, in an announcement. For community activists in affected cities, the justice department's rollback on police reform doesn't entirely come as a shock. Donald Trump established himself as a 'law and order' candidate during the 2024 presidential election and his administration previously signaled that they would end police reform progress in April. Still, the justice department's rollback of reforms is a significant breakdown in progress towards ending police abuses. 'It's very disappointing that the Trump administration is having his DOJ abdicate their statutory authority to investigate police departments and other municipalities under pattern and practice allegations and to make sure that everyone's civil rights are being enforced,' said Kungu Njuguna, a policy strategist at the American Civil Liberties Union of Kentucky. The justice department also announced that it would drop civil rights investigations looking into the conduct of several embattled law enforcement agencies including those in Phoenix, Arizona; Trenton, New Jersey; and Mount Vernon, New York. The agency has also ended a consent decree in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Consent decrees have long been used as a federal intervention into police departments: their implementation began with the passage of the 1994 crime bill, which included a small number of accountability measures for law enforcement. Those reforms were sparked by Los Angeles police officers beating Rodney King in 1991 and protests that came after. The decrees historically have varied in effectiveness. While legally binding, different administrations have weakened them based on their own partisan affiliation. But for community members, consent decrees and broader investigations into misconduct can represent a positive change forward. In Trenton, the justice department's oversight offered a 'glimmer' for residents, said Austin Edward, president of the NAACP Trenton chapter. 'For the first time, having the federal government actually come in and say: 'Something is going wrong here in Trenton,' and finally listening to what the people have been saying for a long time? That's where that hope lies,' he said. 'A lot of people are very disappointed with the fact that we don't have any other recourse at the moment.' Despite the changes in federal oversight, some cities have already committed to passing reform. The Louisville mayor Craig Greenberg and the city's police chief Paul Humphrey promised to carry out the recommended changes, even without the consent decree. Trenton officials also promised to continue enacting reforms. (In 2024, a justice department investigation found that the Trenton police department engaged in a pattern of misconduct against city residents after police shot and paralyzed an unarmed Black man during a traffic stop.) 'We are moving ahead rapidly to continue implementing police reform that ensures constitutional policing while providing transparency and accountability to the public,' said Greenberg in a presser about the DOJ changes. 'I made a promise to our community, and we are keeping that promise.' Njuguna said that the ACLU is still examining what exact reforms Louisville officials are planning to implement and how much they differ from the justice department's former recommendations. But critics have said it is unclear if city officials can be trusted to hold themselves accountable and implement the entirety of the justice department's previous recommendations. Greenberg himself publicly contested the justice department's findings on the LMPD in January 2025, later clarifying that he would accept the report. 'We're kind of in a low to zero environment of trust with the community and LMPD,' said Njuguna. 'Without that independent oversight from the federal government, I think it's hard for some people to believe that LMPD is capable of policing its own.' In the meantime, activists and city officials have launched campaigns to bring attention to step backs in police reform. The People's Consent Decree, a list of demands for LMPD originally launched in 2024, has been gaining additional attention as the justice department ends their finding. The decree, which outlines demands for police accountability, was a collaborative effort between Louisville advocacy groups with the goal of having the city council adopt the measure. Involved groups, said Njuguna, are coming together to help educate the public on what a consent decree is and what rollbacks on progress are in effect. They hope to eventually see the plan implemented at a citywide level.
The Guardian
4 days ago
- Politics
- The Guardian
The US cities left behind as Trump ends key police accountability reforms
US communities that have contended with police violence are losing a major accountability measure to curb abuse. In late May, the Trump administration's Department of Justice announced a reversal in investigations and consent decrees – agreements between federal officials to hold law enforcement agencies accountable to reform – for several major police departments. The move came years after the Biden administration launched investigations into some law enforcement agencies, specifically as racial justice protests kicked off in the summer of 2020. Louisville metro police department (LMPD) is one department that saw its justice department investigation ended, despite its high-profile police controversies. In March 2020, LMPD officers shot and killed Breonna Taylor, a 27-year-old emergency room technician, as she slept in bed with her boyfriend. Police forcibly entered Taylor's home using a 'no-knock' warrant, firing 32 bullets into Taylor's home. Taylor's death sparked international outcry as the Black Lives Matter protests spread across the world. Since 2012, LMPD has also come under scrutiny for its Violent Incident Prevention, Enforcement and Response Unit. Officers, who often wear plainclothes, were found to routinely violate the civil rights of Black and brown residents; the unit was dissolved in 2015. Following Taylor's death, the justice department launched an investigation into LMPD, determining in 2023 that it had '[engaged] in a pattern or practice of conduct that violates the U.S. Constitution and federal law', including excessive force, unlawful searches and detentions, discriminating against Black people in their enforcement. Louisville officials pledged to carry out reforms in response to the justice department's findings. A consent decree that was negotiated was still awaiting approval from a judge. But on 21 May, the Trump administration rolled back previous agreements and investigations to curb police abuse in Louisville and nearly two dozen other cities in the US. 'Today, we are ending the Biden Civil Rights Division's failed experiment of handcuffing local leaders and police departments with factually unjustified consent decrees,' said Harmeet K Dhillon, the head of the justice department's civil rights division, in an announcement. For community activists in affected cities, the justice department's rollback on police reform doesn't entirely come as a shock. Donald Trump established himself as a 'law and order' candidate during the 2024 presidential election and his administration previously signaled that they would end police reform progress in April. Still, the justice department's rollback of reforms is a significant breakdown in progress towards ending police abuses. 'It's very disappointing that the Trump administration is having his DOJ abdicate their statutory authority to investigate police departments and other municipalities under pattern and practice allegations and to make sure that everyone's civil rights are being enforced,' said Kungu Njuguna, a policy strategist at the American Civil Liberties Union of Kentucky. The justice department also announced that it would drop civil rights investigations looking into the conduct of several embattled law enforcement agencies including those in Phoenix, Arizona; Trenton, New Jersey; and Mount Vernon, New York. The agency has also ended a consent decree in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Consent decrees have long been used as a federal intervention into police departments: their implementation began with the passage of the 1994 crime bill, which included a small number of accountability measures for law enforcement. Those reforms were sparked by Los Angeles police officers beating Rodney King in 1991 and protests that came after. The decrees historically have varied in effectiveness. While legally binding, different administrations have weakened them based on their own partisan affiliation. But for community members, consent decrees and broader investigations into misconduct can represent a positive change forward. In Trenton, the justice department's oversight offered a 'glimmer' for residents, said Austin Edward, president of the NAACP Trenton chapter. 'For the first time, having the federal government actually come in and say: 'Something is going wrong here in Trenton,' and finally listening to what the people have been saying for a long time? That's where that hope lies,' he said. 'A lot of people are very disappointed with the fact that we don't have any other recourse at the moment.' Despite the changes in federal oversight, some cities have already committed to passing reform. The Louisville mayor Craig Greenberg and the city's police chief Paul Humphrey promised to carry out the recommended changes, even without the consent decree. Trenton officials also promised to continue enacting reforms. (In 2024, a justice department investigation found that the Trenton police department engaged in a pattern of misconduct against city residents after police shot and paralyzed an unarmed Black man during a traffic stop.) 'We are moving ahead rapidly to continue implementing police reform that ensures constitutional policing while providing transparency and accountability to the public,' said Greenberg in a presser about the DOJ changes. 'I made a promise to our community, and we are keeping that promise.' Njuguna said that the ACLU is still examining what exact reforms Louisville officials are planning to implement and how much they differ from the justice department's former recommendations. But critics have said it is unclear if city officials can be trusted to hold themselves accountable and implement the entirety of the justice department's previous recommendations. Greenberg himself publicly contested the justice department's findings on the LMPD in January 2025, later clarifying that he would accept the report. 'We're kind of in a low to zero environment of trust with the community and LMPD,' said Njuguna. 'Without that independent oversight from the federal government, I think it's hard for some people to believe that LMPD is capable of policing its own.' In the meantime, activists and city officials have launched campaigns to bring attention to step backs in police reform. The People's Consent Decree, a list of demands for LMPD originally launched in 2024, has been gaining additional attention as the justice department ends their finding. The decree, which outlines demands for police accountability, was a collaborative effort between Louisville advocacy groups with the goal of having the city council adopt the measure. Involved groups, said Njuguna, are coming together to help educate the public on what a consent decree is and what rollbacks on progress are in effect. They hope to eventually see the plan implemented at a citywide level.
Time Magazine
7 days ago
- Time Magazine
'Code Switch' Is on The 100 Best Podcasts of All Time
Society In the spring of 2020, in the aftermath of the killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery, co-hosts Shereen Marisol Meraji and Gene Demby noticed their podcast Code Switch rocketing up the Apple charts. The tragedies had encouraged many white Americans in particular to find literature and media that could provide context and interrogate the intersection of race and identity in America—and Code Switch quickly stood out. Though it launched in 2016, the show's impressive episode archive demonstrates how much its hosts were ahead of the discourse, dissecting the landscape of race-related shootings and grappling with the push to remove Confederate statues and memorials. The podcast began as an offshoot of NPR's Code Switch blog, but Meraji and Demby understood early on that their reporting could resonate more powerfully in people's ears. Once they had the backing, they built something that could hold nuance and urgency at the same time. Soon, the show evolved into a kind of cultural compass—never preachy, always curious—using the news of the moment to trace the roots of inequality and identity without flattening anyone's experience.
The Hill
22-07-2025
- Politics
- The Hill
Ex-officer who shot Breonna Taylor gets 3 years — but DOJ asked for zero?
I have reported on injustice for years now. And every so often, a case cuts deeper — not just as a journalist, but as a Black woman. Last night, that moment came again. A former Kentucky police officer, Brett Hankison, was sentenced to just under three years in prison for firing blindly into Breonna Taylor's apartment during the botched 2020 raid that ended her life. Here's what activist and Attorney Benjamin Crump had to say about the sentencing: 'And even though it's not what we wanted — we thought that he should have gotten more time — we are grateful to Kristen Clark, Merrick Garland and the Department of Justice who had the courage for the first time in history to bring federal charges against a police officer for killing a Black woman in America/ And we are thankful that he is at least going to prison and has to think about Breonna Taylor and that her life mattered.' The 33 month sentence came down after the judge outright rejected the Justice Department's recommendation that former officer Hankison should serve no prison time. Imagine that: the Justice Department, the department that we — Black communities and all Americans — are told to trust for justice, suggested this officer's crime was worth zero time behind bars. I sat with that, because that's not just a legal decision. That's a message. Breonna Taylor was a 26-year-old Black woman. An EMT. Someone whose literal job was to save lives. She could have been any of us. She was any of us. She had plans. She had love in her life. She had a future. And all of that ended on March 13, 2020, because of a 'no-knock' warrant tied to someone who didn't even live at her address — because police fired without care or confirmation. She was killed because Kenneth Walker, her boyfriend, thought intruders were breaking in, and because our system didn't value her enough to get it right. They didn't find drugs that they were supposedly looking for. They didn't find evidence. What they found were lives destroyed. What hurts, in this moment, is not just the injustice — it's the pattern. It's the normalization. And what's more exhausting is having to explain why we're still yelling Breonna's name in 2025. We're not chanting her name out of rage. We're chanting it because we're begging people to see Black women not as strong Black women, not as superhuman, not as invisible victims, but as whole human beings who deserve to live freely and safely, just like everyone else. Too often, America doesn't. This country has always been a place where Black women's contributions are celebrated, but our lives are discounted. I have watched us hailed as 'backbones' and 'trailblazers,' while our disappearances go uncovered, our murders go unresolved, and our voices in the delivery room go unheard. We are either heroic or irrelevant — rarely human. Even in Breonna's death, that played out. There wasn't outrage in every corner. There wasn't unanimous support. There was division. There were justifications. There were quiet dismissals. 'She was in the wrong place at the wrong time.' But no — she was in her own home. And still, it wasn't safe. I think about how different that night could have been if a little bit of care had been shown — if due diligence had been done, if police had simply knocked, announced themselves, and handed her a warrant addressed to someone else. She and Kenneth could have gone back to bed. She would still be here today, probably working a shift, saving lives. Instead, her mother had to bury her child. I don't want to stand here, five years later, explaining this to our audience. But I have to, because the same country that tells me it's too 'divisive' to teach Black history in schools now tells me that Breonna's life didn't warrant accountability. That's the message when federal agencies scrub the word 'oppression' from websites. That's the message when museums are criticized for acknowledging racism. That's the message when an officer who fired recklessly gets a recommended sentence of nothing. And yet we're told to move on. I can't. We can't. This isn't about anger. This is about humanity. Calling out Breonna Taylor's name today isn't a protest. It's a reminder that Black women are human beings — complex, vulnerable, powerful, flawed, loving, dreaming human beings. Not afterthoughts, not martyrs, but people who deserve to be protected, remembered. And most importantly, who deserve to live like everybody else. That's why I keep saying her name: 'Breonna Taylor.'
Yahoo
22-07-2025
- Yahoo
Judge gives ex-officer nearly 3 years in Breonna Taylor raid, rebuffs DOJ call for no prison time
A federal judge on Monday sentenced a former Kentucky police officer to nearly three years in prison for using excessive force during the deadly 2020 Breonna Taylor raid, rebuffing a US Department of Justice recommendation of no prison time for the defendant. Brett Hankison, who fired 10 shots during the raid but didn't hit anyone, was the only officer on the scene charged in the Black woman's death. He is the first person sentenced to prison in the case that rocked the city of Louisville and spawned weeks of street protests over police brutality that year. US District Judge Rebecca Grady Jennings, in sentencing Hankison, said no prison time 'is not appropriate' and would minimize the jury's verdict from November. Jennings said she was 'startled' there weren't more people injured in the raid from Hankison's blind shots. She sentenced Hankison, 49, to 33 months in prison for the conviction of use of excessive force with three years of supervised probation to follow the prison term. He will not report directly to prison. The US Bureau of Prisons will determine where and when he starts his sentence, Jennings said. The judge, who presided over two of Hankison's trials, expressed disappointment with a sentencing recommendation by federal prosecutors last week, saying the Justice Department was treating Hankison's actions as 'an inconsequential crime' and said some of its arguments were 'incongruous and inappropriate.' Civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who helped Taylor's family secure a $12 million wrongful death settlement against the city of Louisville, had called the department's recommendation 'an insult to the life of Breonna Taylor and a blatant betrayal of the jury's decision.' Crump was at Monday's hearing and said he had hoped for a longer sentence but was 'grateful that (Hankison) is at least going to prison and has to think for those 3 years about Breonna Taylor and that her life mattered.' Afterward, before a crowd outside the courthouse, Crump sounded a familiar chant: 'Say Her name.' The crowd yelled back: 'Breonna Taylor!' And he and other members of Taylor family's legal team issued a subsequent statement criticizing the Justice Department. 'While today's sentence is not what we had hoped for –– nor does it fully reflect the severity of the harm caused –– it is more than what the Department of Justice sought. That, in itself, is a statement,' the statement said. Hankison's 10 shots the night of the March 2020 botched drug raid flew through the walls of Taylor's apartment into a neighboring apartment, narrowly missing a neighboring family. The 26-year-old's death, along with the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, sparked racial injustice and police brutality protests nationwide that year. But the Justice Department, under new leadership since President Donald Trump took office in January, sought no prison time for Hankison, in an abrupt about-face by federal prosecutors after the department spent years prosecuting the former detective. They suggested time already served, which amounted to one day, and three years of supervised probation. Taylor's mother, Tamika Palmer, said she was disappointed that the new federal prosecutors assigned to the case were not pushing for a tougher sentence. On many occasions inside the courtroom Monday, lead federal prosecutor Rob Keenan agreed with Hankison's defense attorneys on factors that would decrease Hankison's punishment. 'There was no prosecution in there for us,' Palmer said afterward. 'Brett had his own defense team, I didn't know he got a second one.' Taylor was shot in her hallway by two officers after her boyfriend fired from inside the apartment, striking an officer in the leg. Neither of the other officers was charged in state or federal court after prosecutors deemed they were justified in returning fire into the apartment. Louisville police used a drug warrant to enter Taylor's apartment, but found no drugs or cash inside. A separate jury deadlocked on federal charges against Hankison in 2023, and he was acquitted on state charges of wanton endangerment in 2022. In their recent sentencing memo, federal prosecutors wrote that though Hankison's 'response in these fraught circumstances was unreasonable given the benefit of hindsight, that unreasonable response did not kill or wound Breonna Taylor, her boyfriend, her neighbors, defendant's fellow officers, or anyone else.' Jennings acknowledged Monday that officers were provoked by Taylor's boyfriend's gunshot, but said 'that does not allow officers to then do what they want and then be excused.' While the hearing was going on, Louisville police arrested four people in front of the courthouse who it said were 'creating confrontation, kicking vehicles, or otherwise creating an unsafe environment.' Authorities didn't list charges against them. Federal prosecutors had argued that multiple factors — including that Hankison's two other trials ended with no convictions — should greatly reduce the potential punishment. They also argued he would be susceptible to abuse in prison and suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder. The sentencing memorandum was submitted by Harmeet Dhillon, chief of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division and a Trump political appointee who in May moved to cancel settlements with Louisville and Minneapolis that had called for overhauling their police departments. In the Taylor case, three other ex-Louisville police officers have been charged with crafting a falsified warrant, but have not gone to trial. None were at the scene when Taylor was shot. The warrant used to enter her apartment was one of five issued that night in search of evidence on an alleged drug dealer that Taylor once had an association with.
