It was two months before the notorious videotaped lynching of George Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man, by white Minneapolis police officers. On March 13, 2020, Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old Black emergency medical technician, was fatally shot by white police officers in Louisville, Kentucky. Taylor was sleeping in her home.

Taylor was the victim of a Kentucky “no-knock” law that allows the police to enter someone’s home without showing a warrant and without any warning. In this case, the police entered the wrong residence in order to carry out a drug bust. Four police officers fired over 30 bullets into Taylor’s home, with a majority hitting her.

The killing took place after Taylor’s significant other, Kenneth Walker, thinking that a robbery was taking place, fired his registered gun to defend himself and Taylor. Walker was arrested for hitting a police officer in the leg. He was later released, since the police had not identified themselves. 

None of the four officers were charged, much less indicted, for the first-degree or even second-degree murder of Taylor. All the officers were charged by the U.S. Justice Department for violating Taylor’s civil rights, with one other officer found guilty in 2022. Two other officers are facing similar federal charges.

One of the officers, Brett Hankison — who shot 10 bullets into the residences of Taylor’s neighbors — was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Rebecca Grady Jennings on July 21, 2025, to 33 months in prison after a jury found him guilty last November. 

Taylor’s family and legal counsel were hoping for a much longer sentence, since Hankison could have faced a life term in prison for violating Taylor’s civil rights.

Sparked by the mass protests following the police murders of Taylor and Floyd, the Justice Department, under the President Joe Biden administration, was forced to put into place moderate police reform policies for the Louisville and Minneapolis police departments, both of which have sordid histories of police violence against people of color. A partial ban on the no-knock law was passed by the state legislature in 2021. 

Once Donald Trump reoccupied the White House in January, his administration pushed hard to reverse these police reforms and give police greater power to carry out all forms of violence with impunity. In the sentencing of Hankison, the Justice Department stated that he should have received a prison term of only one day! 

While it is true that any kind of sentencing a police officer receives in reaction to acts of violence against Black and Brown people is an important concession, it can never be adequate compensation. Under capitalism, the lives of people of color are regarded as less valuable, due to society being ruled by white supremacy. And with a president who is an overt white supremacist, all concessionary laws won through mass struggle are being threatened with repeal by the racist Justice Department. 

A thoroughgoing revolutionary transformation of society to uproot the violence capitalism foments is needed. We must establish a socialist society based on cooperation and equality that can make the demand to “abolish the police” a reality for workers and oppressed peoples. This will bring about real justice for the Breonna Taylors and George Floyds of the world.