In 2020, when Louisville police gunned down Breonna Taylor during a botched raid, the incident helped galvanize the ascendant Black Lives Matter movement. Along with the murders of George Floyd and Ahmaud Arbery, Taylor’s killing spurred outrage and pushed nationwide police reform tantalizingly close to reality.
How times have changed.
Five years after she was shot to death, the only officer convicted for his role in the raid that killed Taylor was sentenced to roughly three years in federal prison. But the Department of Justice under President Donald Trump wanted him to serve just one day.
Though a judge ignored the recommendation, it was the latest action to undermine the campaign for police accountability and signal that abusive officers have a friend in the White House. That includes Trump’s campaign promise of immunity for police misconduct; his pardoning of two Washington, D.C., cops convicted in a cover-up of a fatal chase; an April executive order rolling back Biden-era reforms; and the DOJ’s decision to walk away from the previous administration’s reform agreements with heavy-handed police departments in Minneapolis and Louisville.
Coupled with the fact that the president openly encourages cops to dish out two-fisted street justice — and that the drumbeat of police killing unarmed Black people thumps on — it’s easy to conclude that the Black Lives Matter movement’s goal of police reform is all but over.
But experts who study the issue say the #BLM era is still very much in effect, with local communities, not the federal government, holding abusive police accountable.
Playing a Smaller Role Than People Think
“I definitely do not think this is the end of efforts to hold police accountable or even efforts to prosecute police officers,” says Rachel Moren, a law professor at St. Thomas University in St. Paul, Minnesota.
While the Trump administration seems almost eager to excuse police brutality, “the federal government’s efforts to pursue police accountability are a pretty small piece of the overall accountability picture, and a very small percentage of police prosecutions,” she says.
“The state prosecutions are the ones where you get [officers charged with] murder and manslaughter and reckless homicide or whatever it may be,” Moren says. If a case gets to federal court, “typically, officers are almost always prosecuted for federal civil rights violations, and those are hard to prove.”
Thaddeus Johnson, a criminal justice professor at Georgia State University, concurs.
States are “where reform happens,” he says. But “oftentimes, the state is left completely out of the reform conversation” because police abuse is often framed as a nationwide issue.
Only about 1.6% of police homicides end up getting prosecuted, so it’s a very small percentage. But on the other hand, it’s more than some people think. There are 281 officers that have been prosecuted for on-duty homicides in this 10-year period.
Rachel Moren, Professor, St. Thomas University School of Law
More Police Officers Are Being Held Accountable
Although roughly 1,000 people die at the hands of police every year, Moren says a growing number of cops are serving time for them. She says she’s studied 10 years’ worth of data and found that the trend line is slowly but gradually heading upward.
“Only about 1.6% of police homicides end up getting prosecuted, so it’s a very small percentage,” Moren says. “But on the other hand, it’s, it’s more than some people think. There are 281 officers that have been prosecuted for on-duty homicides in this 10-year period.”
Still, there’s no doubt Trump has included the Black Lives Matter movement and the call for police reform in his so-called war against “wokeness.” Both Johnson and Moren say his Justice Department’s resistance to police accountability — and Trump’s explicit endorsement of abusive force — could be consequential.
A Dangerous Federal Stance
In April, Trump issued an executive order that would “unleash high-impact local police forces” and defend officers “wrongly accused and abused by State or local officials.” The order will “ensure” that police nationwide “focus on ending crime, not pursuing harmful, illegal race- and sex-based ‘equity’ policies.”
The order came just four months after Trump pardoned two Washington, D.C. police officers for their roles in a deadly chase of a young Black man on a moped in 2020 and their attempts to cover up their culpability. Those actions, the professors say, are clear messages to abusive cops: We’ve got your back.
During a May 2024 rally in Waukesha, Wisconsin, Trump made it plain, promising to “give our police their power back, and we’re going to give them immunity from prosecution, so they’re not prosecuted for doing their job.”
“Does it suck? Yes, it sucks” because it will almost certainly cause harm, Johnson says. The administration, he says, is all but encouraging officers “who may be a little bit more triggered or [want] to use force more often.”
An Exception to the Rule
The Justice Department raised eyebrows when it filed a memo suggesting that Brett Hankison, the Louisville officer involved in Taylor’s death, should walk free. Hankison was tried in federal court during the Biden administration after state prosecutors in Kentucky did not criminally prosecute anyone involved in the raid for a crime. But a district court judge ignored the Trump-era DOJ’s recommendation and sentenced Hankison to 33 months in prison.
Moren says Hankison’s case is the exception that illustrates the rule.
“The federal government doesn’t step in as often as perhaps some people imagine,” she says. Hankison’s case “is one of a very small number of cases where the federal government, first of all, chose to prosecute, but also was successful in their prosecution, where the state either wasn’t successful or didn’t prosecute.”
Solutions, State and Local Activists
Ultimately, Johnson, the Georgia State professor, says the success of the police reform and accountability movement lies with state and local activists who likely weren’t pushing the federal government anyway. Solutions include creating accountability boards, hiring progressive police chiefs, and using social services as a way to reduce crime.
The latter approach helps enhance “the legitimacy of not just police, but people view the entire local government as being more legitimate,” Johnson says. “But it also involves making sure [prosecutors] hold police accountable and that you try to address and handle police brutality the same way you do with a high-profile murder. As citizens, we hold [police] accountable.”
