This Day in History: 2020-03-13

Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old African-American woman and decorated Emergency Medical Technician (EMT), is shot and killed in her Louisville, Kentucky, apartment on March 13, 2020, when white plainclothes officers Jonathan Mattingly, Brett Hankison, and Myles Cosgrove of the Louisville Metro Police Department (LMPD) force entry into the apartment unannounced. Taylor’s boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, was inside the apartment with her when the officers knocked on the door and then forced entry. Walker thought the officers were intruders and fired a warning shot at them. According to officials, it hit Mattingly in the leg; in return, the officers blindly fired 32 shots during two “flurries” or waves of shots separated by one minute and eight seconds. Walker was unhurt but Taylor was hit by six bullets and died. The shooting of Taylor by police officers led to numerous protests across the United States against police brutality and racism, especially in the aftermath of the subsequent police killing of George Floyd in Minnesota and a grand jury’s failure to indict the officers for Taylor’s death. Learn more.