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

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