A memorial to Breonna Taylor in Louisville, Ky., in 2020.Credit...Xavier Burrell for The New York Times
By Glenn Thrush, The New York Times, March 8, 2023
The police department in Louisville, Ky., engaged in a far-ranging pattern of discriminatory and abusive law enforcement practices, the Justice Department said on Wednesday after conducting a two-year investigation prompted by the fatal shooting of Breonna Taylor by the police in 2020.
In a damning 90-page report, investigators painted a grim portrait of the Louisville Metro Police Department, detailing a variety of serious — at times shocking — misconduct. They included the use of excessive force; searches based on invalid and so-called no-knock warrants; unlawful car stops, detentions and harassment of people during street sweeps; and broad patterns of discrimination against Black people and those with behavioral health problems.
The conduct of the police department “has undermined its public safety mission and strained its relationship with the community it is meant to protect and serve,” Attorney General Merrick B. Garland said at a news conference in Louisville, appearing alongside the city’s mayor and acting police chief. “This conduct is unacceptable. It is heartbreaking.”
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