Breonna Taylor Settlement: $12M Payout, Reforms, and Walker’s $2M

In September 2020, Louisville, Kentucky, agreed to pay $12 million to the family of Breonna Taylor to resolve their wrongful death lawsuit against the city, the largest police misconduct payout in Louisville’s history. The Breonna Taylor settlement also required the city to adopt more than a dozen policing reforms, which is what set it apart from most agreements of its kind.¹² The city did not admit wrongdoing.³

Why the City Paid

Taylor, a 26-year-old emergency room technician, was killed shortly after midnight on March 13, 2020, when plainclothes Louisville Metro Police officers used a battering ram to enter her apartment during a drug investigation targeting her ex-boyfriend. A judge had approved a no-knock warrant the day before, though officers said their orders had been changed to knock and announce.⁴⁵

Taylor’s boyfriend, Kenneth Walker III, said the two heard loud banging but no announcement. Believing intruders were breaking in, he fired a single shot that struck Sergeant Jonathan Mattingly in the leg. Officers returned fire. Mattingly and Detective Myles Cosgrove shot into the apartment, hitting Taylor five times. Detective Brett Hankison fired ten additional rounds through a covered window and door. Taylor received no medical attention for more than twenty minutes, and the county coroner said she likely died less than a minute after being shot. No drugs were found in the apartment, and none of the officers were wearing body cameras.⁴⁵

The Wrongful Death Lawsuit

On April 27, 2020, Taylor’s mother, Tamika Palmer, hired attorneys Sam Aguiar and Lonita Baker to file a wrongful death suit in Jefferson District Court against the three officers who fired their weapons.⁶ Civil rights attorney Ben Crump joined the team shortly after.⁷ The lawyers spent months fighting for basic evidence, filing contempt motions when the coroner’s office refused to release Taylor’s autopsy and publicly accusing Louisville of a “pattern of lack of transparency.”⁸

Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer announced the settlement on September 15, 2020. The $12 million figure surpassed the city’s previous largest payout, an $8.5 million wrongful-conviction settlement. Crump described it as one of the largest amounts ever paid in the United States for a Black woman killed by police.⁹

The Reforms Attached to the Settlement

Attorney Lonita Baker called the combination of a financial settlement and mandated reforms “unheard of in one of these cases.”² The city agreed to:

Require written approval by a commanding officer, plus a risk assessment, before any search warrant is executed.⁶
Set up an early warning system to flag officers who accumulate use-of-force incidents or citizen complaints.¹
Hire social workers to accompany officers responding to certain calls.³
Create a housing credit program to encourage officers to live in the neighborhoods they serve.³
Require paramedics on scene for all forced-entry search warrants.¹⁰
Compensate officers for up to two hours per pay period volunteering with community organizations.²

A separate measure often confused with the settlement is Breonna’s Law, which the Louisville Metro Council passed in June 2020. That ordinance banned no-knock warrants for Louisville police, required officers to knock and announce for at least 15 seconds before entering, and mandated that all officers present at a warrant execution wear activated body cameras. It was legislation, not a term of the civil settlement.¹¹

Kenneth Walker’s Separate $2 Million Settlement

Kenneth Walker III, who was in the apartment during the raid, reached his own settlement with Louisville in November 2022 for $2 million. Walker had been arrested that night and charged with attempted murder of a police officer for the shot that struck Mattingly; prosecutors dropped those charges, which were permanently dismissed in March 2021.¹²

Walker filed suit in state court in September 2020 and in federal court in March 2021, alleging officers obtained a materially false search warrant, used excessive force, and violated his civil rights. Following federal court mediation, the city resolved both suits without admitting wrongdoing, and the individual officers named in the lawsuits were released from any obligation to pay.¹²¹³

Settlements With Neighbors and Protesters

Taylor’s neighbors, Chelsey Napper and Cody Etherton, sued Brett Hankison in 2020 after bullets he fired during the raid entered their home while they and Napper’s child were sleeping. In October 2025, a court filing confirmed the parties had settled for no more than $25,000, with the money placed in a restricted account for the couple’s children.¹⁴

In August 2025, Louisville agreed to pay roughly $1.06 million to settle a lawsuit brought by the NAACP and the ACLU of Kentucky on behalf of former state representative Attica Scott and other protesters who alleged police used excessive force during the 2020 demonstrations that followed Taylor’s death. The complaint described officers deploying tear gas, pepper balls, batons, and flashbangs against largely peaceful crowds over more than 150 days of protests. One plaintiff, Patrick Moore, reported being shot in the eye with a pepper ball, resulting in four surgeries and significant vision loss. The city admitted no liability.¹⁵

What the Settlement Did Not Resolve

The civil settlement was not a criminal outcome. No officer was ever charged with killing Breonna Taylor. In September 2020, Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron announced that the officers who fired the fatal shots would not be indicted, saying prosecutors concluded their return of fire was justified after Walker shot first.¹⁶¹⁷¹⁸

1
NPR. Breonna Taylor’s Family Settles With Louisville Over Wrongful Death Suit
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The 19th. The $12 Million Breonna Taylor Settlement Sparks Reform, Echoes #SayHerName Cases
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CNN. Breonna Taylor Louisville Settlement
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U.S. Congress. House Judiciary Committee Hearing Document on Breonna Taylor
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CNN. No-Knock Raid: Breonna Taylor Timeline
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Ben Crump Law. Breonna Taylor’s Lawyer
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Louisville Courier Journal. These Lawyers Negotiated the $12 Million Breonna Taylor Settlement
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WDRB. City, Police and Breonna Taylor’s Attorneys Agree to Protective Order
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CNN. Police Shooting Lawsuits and the Breonna Taylor Settlement
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Advocate Capital. Sam Aguiar Injury Lawyers: Breonna Taylor Settlement
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Louisville Metro Government. Metro Council Passes Breonna’s Law: No-Knock Warrants Are Banned for LMPD
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Louisville Courier Journal. Kenneth Walker, Breonna Taylor Boyfriend, Lawsuit Settlement With Louisville
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CNN. Breonna Taylor’s Boyfriend Reaches $2 Million Settlement With City of Louisville
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WLKY. Settlement: Brett Hankison and Breonna Taylor’s Neighbors
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WDRB. Louisville Settles Lawsuit Over LMPD’s Response to 2020 Breonna Taylor Protests for $1M
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NAACP Legal Defense Fund. Justice Denied: A Call for a New Grand Jury Investigation Into the Police Shooting of Breonna Taylor
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U.S. Department of Justice. Former Louisville, Kentucky Metro Police Officer Found Guilty of Federal Civil Rights Crimes
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ABC News. Breonna Taylor Death: Brett Hankison Sentencing in Federal Court