The Drug War killed Breonna Taylor. Former Detective Brett Hankinson, Sergeant Jonathan Mattingly, and Detective Myles Cosgrove may have pulled the trigger, but they carried out this raid because of our misguided, ineffective, and racist drug laws. Since President Nixon first declared a “War on Drugs” in 1971, Black Americans have been arrested, jailed, and killed for frequently minor or nonviolent drug offenses. No‐knock raids, in which police are authorized to enter a property without notifying the residents, have become a favorite tool of law enforcement, with tens of thousands executed each year.
