After news broke that the NYPD disbanded their anti-crime plainclothes unit, Breonna Taylor's attorneys are now asking that the Louisville Metro Police Department do the same, insisting that she might still be alive today if these undercover officers hadn't been the ones to enter her home the night she was killed. Sam Aguiar, a lawyer on Breonna's family's legal team, pointed out that if the no-knock search warrant had been carried out by uniformed officers with badges instead, she might never have been shot to death while asleep in her own home. Aguiar notes that a total of sixteen neighbours have confirmed that then-officers Jon Mattingly, Myles Cosgrove, and Brett Hankison, did not announce their presence while they forcibly entered Breonna's apartment, making them appear as though they could be intruders.
"[When police] don’t put on the uniform and they don’t put on the badge, it lets them have the sense that they can just go rogue," said Aguiar, who believes plainclothes units exhibit an almost gang-like mentality. According to TMZ, Aguiar indicates that these officers have been known to "beat down doors when executing search warrants, never announce themselves as police and make it difficult for bystanders to know they are police because they don't arrive in cop cars." He believes that if the LMPD followed in the NYPD's footsteps, fewer search warrants would end in bloodshed.
As of this moment, Breonna's murderers have still not been arrested or charged. Louisville has since enacted Breonna's Law, banning no-knock warrants.
