$12 Million Settlement for Breonna Taylor's Family After Fatal LMPD Raid

In the early hours of March 13, 2020, Louisville Metro Police Department officers executed a no-knock search warrant at the apartment of Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old licensed emergency medical technician. Officers Sgt. Jonathan Mattingly, Det. Myles Cosgrove, and Det. Brett Hankison entered while Taylor and her boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, were asleep. Walker, believing the entry was a home invasion, fired one shot. Officers returned fire, striking Taylor at least eight times. She died at the scene. No drugs were found in the apartment.

Taylor's mother, Tamika Palmer, filed a wrongful death lawsuit in April 2020 against the city of Louisville and the three officers. The suit alleged the officers had fired blindly, without identifying their targets, in violation of department policy. Det. Hankison was later terminated by LMPD for firing ten rounds through a covered glass door and window into an adjacent unit.

Sam Aguiar served as co-counsel alongside attorneys Lonita Baker and Benjamin Crump in representing the Taylor family. The legal team pressed claims under state wrongful death law and federal civil rights statutes, arguing the warrant itself was based on flawed information and that the city bore responsibility for how it was executed.

On September 15, 2020, the city of Louisville announced a $12 million settlement with Taylor's family. The figure surpassed the previous Louisville record for a police misconduct payout, which had stood at $8.5 million from a 2012 case. The agreement paired the monetary payment with a package of LMPD policy reforms, including mandatory commanding-officer review of all search warrants before execution, integration of social workers into police operations, creation of an Office of Inspector General, and a new early-warning system to track officer use-of-force incidents.

The settlement resolved the civil wrongful death lawsuit. No LMPD officers faced criminal charges in Kentucky state court in connection with Taylor's death.