Push expands to ban no- knock warrants

Cities and states take steps to end tool that led to Breonna Taylor’s death.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Louisville’s ban on no- knock search warrants, the kind used in the fatal police shooting of Breonna Taylor, may be the start of something bigger — both in Kentucky and around the U. S.

Rep. Attica Scott, D- Louisville, said last week she expects to prefile a bill to ban no- knock warrants in Kentucky.

Cincinnati, too, will soon have an ordinance filed that would ban their use in that city.

And U. S. Sen. Rand Paul, R- Ky., has already said he is filing a bill he’s calling the “Justice for Breonna Taylor Act” that effectively would end noknock warrants in the U. S.

Scott said she started working on her no- knock bill several weeks ago, calling it one of the central demands protesters have raised during two weeks of rallies in Louisville.

Democratic state Sen. Morgan McGarvey said a draft of a Senate bill has been requested, adding that the unanimous vote by the Louisville Metro Council shows there’s clearly an appetite for it.

In Cincinnati, City Council member Chris Seelbach, who is from Louisville, said he’s preparing an ordinance banning their use as well. Lt. Steve Saunders, spokesman for the Cincinnati Police Department, said the no- knock warrants are “very, very infrequently” used by the department and there is a “very high bar” needed to obtain them.

All of these actions came in response to Taylor’s death.

The 26- year- old ER technician, who was Black, was unarmed when she fatally shot by Louisville Metro Police in her apartment early March 13. Police were attempting to serve a no- knock search warrant as a part of a narcotics investigation.

No- knock warrants do not mean that police don’t announce their presence, but rather that they identify themselves as police only after gaining entrance.