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Louisville Metro Police’s No Knock Warrants Often Targeted Black Residents, Analysis Shows

Louisville Metro Police’s no knock warrant disproportionately targeted Black residents, an analysis by The Courier Journal shows.

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Louisville Metro Police disproportionately targeted Black residents living in the West End for “no-knock” search warrants .

Analysis on Louisville no-knock warrants

Purportedly, just like the one that led officers to Breonna Taylor’s door the night they fatally shot her, a Courier Journal analysis has found.

In the past two years (before the city banned them in June), LMPD says its officers received court approval for at least 27 no-knock warrants — allowing police to legally break in to homes without first knocking, announcing themselves and waiting a reasonable amount of time for residents to respond, usually around 30 seconds.

Racially disproportionate

A Courier Journal analysis of 22 of those warrants (several remain sealed by a judge) showed 82% of the listed suspects were Black and 68% were for addresses in the city’s West End.

The no-knock warrants comprise a fraction of the thousands of search warrants Louisville Metro Police Department serves each year. In 2019 alone, the department said it conducted more than 3,000 court-authorized searches.

But The Courier Journal’s findings echo the concerns of civil rights advocates and experts who say no-knock warrants across the U.S. more frequently are used against Black and brown Americans.

Read more on The Courier Journal


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Unheard Voices is an award-winning news online magazine that started in 2004 as a newsletter in the Asbury Park, Neptune, and Long Branch, NJ areas to broadening into a recognized Black owned media outlet. The company is one of the few outlets dedicated to covering social justice issues. They are the recipient of the NAACP Unsung Hero Award and CV Magazine's Innovator Award for Best Social Justice Communications Company.

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