Breonna Taylor’s Apartment: Raid, Charges, Settlement, Reforms

The Breonna Taylor apartment raid took place just after midnight on March 13, 2020, when Louisville Metro Police Department officers forced open the door of her unit at 3003 Springfield Drive to execute a search warrant tied to a narcotics investigation. Taylor, a 26-year-old emergency medical technician, was shot six times and killed after her boyfriend, believing intruders were breaking in, fired one round at the doorway and three officers returned fire with 32 rounds. No drugs, money, or paraphernalia were found in the apartment.¹

Why Police Were at the Apartment

Taylor was not the target. Detectives were investigating Jamarcus Glover, a convicted drug dealer and Taylor’s ex-boyfriend, whom they suspected of supplying a drug house on Elliott Avenue. Detective Joshua Jaynes tied Taylor’s address to Glover through surveillance of Glover leaving her apartment with a package, a vehicle registered to Taylor spotted near the Elliott Avenue property, bank records listing Taylor’s address, and Glover’s use of Taylor’s phone number on a police complaint form.²

In the affidavit filed March 12, 2020, Jaynes stated that a postal inspector had verified Glover was receiving packages at Taylor’s home. A Louisville postal inspector later told WDRB that claim was untrue.² Jefferson County Circuit Judge Mary Shaw signed the warrant, one of five approved that night for locations connected to Glover.³ Glover was already in custody elsewhere when the raid on Taylor’s apartment began.⁴

What Happened Inside the Apartment

Taylor and her boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, were in bed when officers arrived after midnight. What happened at the door is disputed. The officer who used the battering ram later testified the team announced themselves four or five times. Walker said he and Taylor repeatedly called out “Who is it?” and heard no answer.³

Walker, a legal gun owner, said he believed an intruder was breaking in. He fired one shot toward the door as it opened, striking Sergeant Jonathan Mattingly in the leg.⁵ Three officers returned fire with a combined 32 rounds. Mattingly fired six from inside the doorway. Detective Myles Cosgrove fired 16 rounds into the apartment. Detective Brett Hankison fired 10 from outside without a clear line of sight, five through a sliding glass patio door and five through a bedroom window.⁶

Taylor was standing in the hallway with Walker when six bullets hit her, including wounds to her left arm, left leg, right foot, heel, and abdomen.⁷ Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron later identified Cosgrove as the officer who fired the fatal shot.⁸

Bullets Into Neighboring Apartments

Two rounds fired by Mattingly and Cosgrove passed through the ceiling into the apartment directly above, where a man, his two-year-old daughter, and a babysitter were present.⁶ Three of Hankison’s bullets went through a shared wall into Apartment 3, home to Cody Etherton, Chelsey Napper, and Napper’s five-year-old child. One bullet entered the room where the child was sleeping, passing within one to two feet of the child.⁹ Additional strikes were found on a clock, a dining room table, and the neighbors’ sliding glass door.⁷ No neighbors were physically injured.

Etherton and Napper filed four civil lawsuits against Hankison seeking $12 million. All claims were settled out of court in October 2025. Court filings indicate settlements for two of the couple’s children were under $25,000 each, though the full total was not disclosed.¹⁰

Kenneth Walker’s Charges and a Consequential Ruling

Walker was arrested at the scene and charged with attempted murder of a police officer and assault for the shot that struck Mattingly. His attorneys invoked Kentucky’s stand-your-ground law, arguing he had no idea the people breaking down his door were police.¹¹ Jefferson County Commonwealth’s Attorney Tom Wine dropped the charges in May 2020.⁵

Walker later filed state and federal civil suits. In December 2022 the city agreed to pay him $2 million without admitting wrongdoing.¹²

Walker’s single shot also reshaped the federal prosecution. In 2024, U.S. District Judge Charles Simpson found that Walker’s decision to fire was the “proximate, or legal, cause” of Taylor’s death, writing that “there is no direct link between the warrantless entry and Taylor’s death” because Walker’s shot “disrupted” the chain of events set in motion by the warrant.¹³ That reasoning gutted the felony case against the officers who prepared the false warrant.

Criminal Cases Against the Officers

Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron presented evidence to a state grand jury in September 2020. No officer was indicted for Taylor’s death. The only state charges returned were three counts of wanton endangerment against Hankison for firing into the neighboring apartments.¹⁴ A jury acquitted him at a March 2022 state trial.¹⁵

In August 2022, the U.S. Department of Justice charged four current and former LMPD officers with federal crimes tied to the raid and the falsified warrant.

Brett Hankison

Hankison faced two counts of federal civil rights abuse for firing blindly into Taylor’s apartment and endangering the neighbors. In November 2024 a federal jury convicted him on the count involving Taylor and acquitted him on the count involving the neighbors.¹⁶ On July 21, 2025, U.S. District Judge Rebecca Grady Jennings sentenced him to 33 months in prison and three years of supervised release.¹⁷ In December 2025, a Sixth Circuit judge granted Hankison release from a federal prison in New Jersey pending appeal, citing “substantial questions” and threats that had forced his transfer to special housing.¹⁸ The Justice Department had filed a sentencing memo suggesting he should not have been prosecuted for the charge.¹⁹

Joshua Jaynes and Kyle Meany

Jaynes, who wrote the affidavit, and Meany, the sergeant who approved it, were initially charged with federal civil rights offenses carrying potential life sentences. In August 2024, Judge Simpson dismissed the felony charges under his proximate-cause ruling. What remained were misdemeanors: falsification of records and conspiracy to falsify records and tamper with witnesses for Jaynes, and false statements to investigators for Meany.²⁰ On March 27, 2026, Judge Simpson approved a Trump administration request to dismiss all remaining charges against both men with prejudice, meaning they cannot be refiled. The administration called the prosecution “weaponized federal overreach” by the prior Biden administration.²¹

Kelly Goodlett

Former detective Kelly Goodlett pleaded guilty in 2022 to one count of conspiring to violate Taylor’s civil rights by helping falsify the affidavit and cover it up. She faced up to five years. As of mid-2025 she had not been sentenced and was expected to serve as a witness in the remaining cases.²²

Myles Cosgrove

Cosgrove, identified as the officer who fired the fatal shot, was never criminally charged. He was fired by LMPD in January 2021. The police merit board upheld his termination 5-2, and the Kentucky Court of Appeals affirmed the firing in May 2024. The Carroll County Sheriff’s Department hired him in April 2023.²³

The $12 Million Settlement

On September 15, 2020, Louisville Metro Government announced a $12 million settlement of the wrongful death suit filed by Taylor’s mother, Tamika Palmer. It was one of the largest police misconduct settlements in the city’s history. The agreement bundled in policing reforms.²⁴

Commanding-officer approval required for all search warrants and supporting affidavits before seeking judicial approval, with EMS units required to be present for forced-entry warrants.
A housing incentive program encouraging officers to live in low-income census tracts.
Integration of social workers into police operations and dispatched calls.
An early warning system tracking use-of-force incidents and citizen complaints.
Expanded random drug testing and broader maintenance of disciplinary records in personnel files.²⁵

Breonna’s Law and State Reforms

On June 11, 2020, the Louisville Metro Council unanimously passed “Breonna’s Law,” banning no-knock warrants for the LMPD. Officers must knock loudly enough for occupants to hear, announce themselves as law enforcement, and wait at least 15 seconds before entering. All officers present must have operating body cameras, recording from at least five minutes before execution through five minutes after.²⁶

In 2021, the Kentucky General Assembly limited but did not fully ban no-knock warrants statewide, adding requirements for supervisor approval, paramedic presence, and recording devices.²⁷

The DOJ Investigation and the Consent Decree That Never Took Effect

The U.S. Department of Justice opened a pattern-or-practice investigation into LMPD in April 2021. Its March 2023 report found reasonable cause to believe the department engaged in a pattern of constitutional violations, including excessive force, unlawful searches, discriminatory policing against Black residents, First Amendment violations, and inadequate responses to sexual assault and domestic violence cases. The report noted Louisville Metro had paid more than $40 million over six years to resolve police misconduct claims.²⁸

In December 2024, DOJ and Louisville Metro filed a proposed consent decree in federal court that would have placed the department under independent monitoring and mandated reforms to use of force, search warrants, crisis response, and accountability.²⁹

It never took effect. On May 21, 2025, the Trump administration’s Justice Department moved to dismiss the lawsuit and the consent decree with prejudice, retracting the Biden-era findings. Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon called the proposed decree part of the prior administration’s “failed experiment of handcuffing local leaders and police departments.”³⁰ Louisville Metro did not oppose the dismissal. Mayor Craig Greenberg said “the writing was on the wall” and announced a local program called “Community Commitment,” described as a local version of the consent decree, with roughly half the monitoring budget the federal agreement would have required.³¹

1
CNN. Breonna Taylor Police Documents
2
USA Today. Report Details Why Louisville Police Wanted to Search Breonna Taylor’s Home
3
CNN. No-Knock Raid Breonna Taylor Timeline
4
ABC News. Breonna Taylor’s Connection to Boyfriend Jamarcus Glover
5
PBS NewsHour. Breonna Taylor’s Boyfriend Recounts How Police Shot Her
6
The New York Times. Breonna Taylor Death
7
NAACP Legal Defense Fund. Grand Jury Proceedings Transcript
8
BBC. Breonna Taylor Case
9
The Guardian. Breonna Taylor Neighbor Testified Louisville Police Trial Brett Hankison
10
WAVE 3 News. Settlement Reached in Lawsuit Filed by Breonna Taylor’s Neighbors Against Former LMPD Officer
11
ABC News. Kenneth Walker, Boyfriend of Breonna Taylor, Sues Police and City
12
CNN. Breonna Taylor Boyfriend Louisville Settlement
13
Rolling Stone. Judge Clears Cops Who Falsified Breonna Taylor Warrant of Some Charges
14
NAACP Legal Defense Fund. Justice Denied
15
NAACP Legal Defense Fund. LDF Remarks on Verdict in Former Officer’s Trial
16
U.S. Department of Justice. Former Louisville Metro Police Officer Found Guilty of Federal Civil Rights Crimes
17
Kentucky Lantern. Former Police Officer Involved in Breonna Taylor Raid Appeals Sentence
18
WAVE 3 News. Judge Grants Brett Hankison’s Motion for Release From Prison Pending Appeal
19
The Washington Post. Breonna Taylor Justice Department Drop Charges
20
ABC 7 New York. Felony Charges Dismissed Against Former Louisville Detective Joshua Jaynes and Sgt. Kyle Meany
21
The New York Times. Breonna Taylor Officer Charges Dropped
22
Courier-Journal. Breonna Taylor Case: Where Cases Stand After Brett Hankison Sentencing
23
Courier-Journal. Court Sides With LMPD in Suit Over Firing of Officer Who Shot Breonna Taylor
24
Louisville Metro Government. Mayor Fischer Announces Settlement of Civil Lawsuit Filed by Breonna Taylor’s Estate
25
ABC News. Settlement Reached in Fatal Kentucky Police Shooting of Breonna Taylor
26
Louisville Metro Government. Metro Council Passes Breonna’s Law
27
Louisville Public Media. Five Years After Breonna Taylor’s Killing
28
U.S. Department of Justice. LMPD Findings Report
29
U.S. Department of Justice. Justice Department Secures Agreement With Louisville Metro Government
30
U.S. Department of Justice. DOJ Civil Rights Division Dismisses Biden-Era Police Investigations
31
Louisville Public Media. DOJ to Drop Consent Decree in Louisville