This week marks four years since the death of Breonna Taylor.

The 26 year old EMT was shot multiple times by police who received a no knock award for her Louisville apartment as part of a drug investigation.

No drugs were found in her home.

And the case fueled nationwide protests against police brutality and systemic racism.

Today, there was a bipartisan and bicameral push for new federal legislation to ban no knock warrants nationwide.

U.S.

Congressman Morgan McGarvey joined US Senator Rand Paul in Louisville to reintroduce the justice for Breonna Taylor Act.

What happened here on March 13th of 2020 is not an isolated incident in our community or in our country.

Dozens of civilians and law enforcement officers have died during no knock raids across the United States.

We know that executing no knock warrants can be deadly, and that's why we did something about it in the Kentucky General Assembly and in Louisville.

Passing laws that restrict or outright ban the use of no knock warrants.

If we can do this in Kentucky, we can do this nationally.

I do this not only because I care about the people behind the door.

I also care about the police.

I think it's a very dangerous road for police to take.

And, you know, there's a lot of better ways to arrest people that don't involve going in in the middle of the night.

None of this really stops emergencies.

There still are emergencies and all of those do exist.

And we'll have emergencies where people do go in very quickly.

But it shouldn't be the norm.

It should be really the exception.

And only under exceptional emergency conditions when someone's life is being threatened.

But I'm glad that Congressman Garvey has taken the lead on this now.

Senator Rand Paul introduced similar legislation in 2020, but it failed to gain traction on Capitol Hill.

This time, both policy makers are hopeful for a different outcome, adding that the bill will be tied to federal money for law enforcement.

I think it will be a bipartisan bill.

It's linked to Department of Justice money.

So you have to look for sort of a federal link that might affect policy.

And so we say if your entity gets Department of Justice money, which is a lot of different entities, that you would be bound by the no knock rules.

And it also says if it's a federal entity, so if it's a federal warrant that's being served, that you wouldn't have the no knock rate as well.

I'm very hopeful that this will move forward.

I'm sorry that it took the death of Boehner to get everybody unified.

Divided government does give an opportunity to get things done, and it gets an opportunity to get things done where there is agreement and where we have agreement on this is we want our communities to be safer.

We want our citizens to be safe and to be free from unreasonable search and seizure in their homes.

We want to protect our first responders.

That's what banning no knock Bill, no knock warrants does.

It makes our community safer.

Ultimately, it protects people in their homes.

It protects law enforcement officers who have to serve these warrants.

And so maybe in divided government, this gives us an opportunity to make some progress, particularly when you have Democrats and Republicans coming together on the same issue.

Last March, the US Department of Justice released findings of its two year investigation into the Louisville Metro Police Department that was prompted by Taylor's death.

Some of the findings included instances of Lmpd unlawfully arresting people of color, use of excessive force and the illegal use of no knock warrants.