On March 13, 2020, The Louisville Metro Police Department was given permission to search Breonna Taylor’s house through a no-knock search warrant. They used a battering ram to enter her house.
Upon their entrance, Taylor’s boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, thought that the officers were intruders and fired his gun. In response, the police blindly fired several shots into the apartment, striking and killing Breonna Taylor, who was sleeping.
Following Taylor’s death, states began to prohibit no-knock warrants. Louisville’s “Breonna Law,” which outlaws no-knock warrants in the city, was passed unanimously last June. Now, a bill that was created to limit no-knock warrants will be sent to the Kentucky House floor. The bill states that no-knock warrants could only be used when there is “clear and convincing evidence” that the accused crime “would qualify a person, if convicted, as a violent offender.” Other states such as Oregon, Florida, and Virginia have already prohibited the practice state-wide.
Arizona is also reevaluating the place of no-knock warrants in the American court system after a Supreme Court administrative order was issued. The order will create a task force of law enforcement, judges and attorneys to re-examine the safeguards that the state currently has in place.
But Breonna Taylor’s death was the last straw of a policy that had been escalating for years and still disproportionately affects people of color.
Before Taylor’s murder, approximately 20,000 or more no-knock raids occurred each year. Although raids are only intended to be used in high-risk situations, in many cases, they are used for far less.
According to Ralph Balko, an investigative journalist and author, 20-30 people die in drug-related raids every year. Like in Breonna Taylor’s case, 8-10 of those deaths are of innocent civilians killed in their own homes.
These raids mainly target communities of color. According to a 2014 ACLU report, 12 percent of raids were of Latino households and 42 percent targeted Black people. The disproportionate rates at which these communities are singled out leaves many at risk just by sitting in their own homes.
A search warrant conducted with the wrong address left the home of Patricia Dandridge, a Black woman in Southeast, D.C. ransacked and destroyed in 2015. Police officers’ had failed to verify the correct address and breached Dandridge’s home and search for firearms. Their search was unsuccessful, since no firearms were present in the home.
Shandalyn Harrison, another Black woman, suffered from a similar raid. On April 5, 2013, officers stopped and pulled over her ex-boyfriend, who had an obstructed license plate. During the stop, he was found in possession of five ounces of marijuana. Through a utility listing and his driver’s license, they found an address for him. However, the address was not his; it was Harrison’s, and he had never lived there.
Thirteen days after the stop, over twenty officers arrived at Harrison’s home. One rushed into the bathroom, where Harrison’s 11-year-old daughter was taking a shower, pulled back the curtain and pointed a gun at her. Harrison’s 21-year-old brother, Sterling, was also held at gunpoint. Another officer told her children that the raid was happening because their father was a “bad man” who “did not care about them.”
Often, these no-knock search warrants leave innocent people within marginalized communities vulnerable to attacks, injuries, property damage, or, in the worst cases, death.
Even as states move to outlaw no-knock warrants, Black and brown Americans still face the disproportionate consequences of that policy. In January 2013, officers conducted a no-knock search raid on the home of Henry Magee, a white man, in Texas. After they threw a flash-bang grenade outside of his home, officers attempted to enter Magee’s property. They were met by Magee who fired his shotgun as soon as they opened the door, and one SWAT team officer was killed.
Meanwhile, in May 2013, a SWAT team ignited a flash-bang grenade outside the apartment of Marvin Guy, a black man, who was suspected of having cocaine. Officers proceeded to enter the apartment through the window and Guy shot at them. During the interaction, one officer was killed.
Both Magee and Guy were tried for capital murder; however, Magee’s charges were dismissed while Guy faces capital punishment and the death penalty.
As no-knock warrants are outlawed, states must also work to fix the harms to communities of color they have already caused. It is also essential to remember that the reforms came at the expense of an innocent woman’s life exactly one year ago. For her sake and for the many others who were disadvantaged at the hands of no-knock warrants, efforts should have been made to prohibit the practice long ago.
Hopefully, other states will soon join Oregon, Kentucky and Arizona in banning the practice once and for all.