This column first appeared in The Amendment, a biweekly newsletter by Errin Haines, The 19th’s editor-at-large. Subscribe today to get early access to her analysis.
Breonna Taylor didn’t play about getting her hair done.
An emergency medical technician with dreams of becoming a nurse, Taylor was a vivacious 26-year-old who liked to look good while she worked hard.
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“She loved just taking care of herself and how she looked,” her mother, Tamika Palmer, said in an interview last week. Palmer laughed as she recalled a photo from her daughter’s beautician that popped up recently as a social media memory, with Taylor proudly showing off a rare short hairstyle.
“She just was so happy, she was so just in awe of herself and her hair that day,” Palmer said. “I just remember her energy and her spirit and her smile.”
Five years after Taylor was killed by police officers, her mother is still mourning all that she had to bury, still trying to adjust to the reality that she will never see her daughter walk through the door, full of energy, and eager to show off her latest look.
Palmer spoke to The 19th ahead of the fifth anniversary of Taylor’s death about her fight to seek answers and her continued fight to seek justice.
For her mother, every day is the anniversary of Taylor’s death.
“I can’t get used to this new way without her,” Palmer said. “I can’t get used to her not being around, not calling. … It’s unbelievable.”
Before the shooting, Palmer’s greatest worry for Taylor’s safety was that she was washing her hands and avoiding the unfolding coronavirus. It didn’t occur to Palmer — particularly in the midst of the pandemic — that her daughter could become one of the hundreds of Black women who have been killed by police.
Taylor, an essential worker who was on the front lines in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, was shot eight times by Louisville, Kentucky, police officers in her apartment on the night of March 13, 2020.
That night, after 13 hours at the scene of Taylor’s apartment, Palmer left not knowing what had happened to her oldest daughter; she discovered on the news that Taylor had been shot by police. Palmer learned little else in the days that followed about how or why Taylor died.
For weeks, as the rest of the country and the world was focused on the growing pandemic, Palmer pushed for accountability from the Louisville police department.
“It was hard to get answers, it was hard to get people to help, it was hard to have a funeral,” Palmer said. “It was the beginning of a terrible time for us. We were so consumed with learning about the pandemic. For the world to continue on, as if she didn’t matter, was heartbreaking.”
It would be nearly two months after Taylor’s shooting before much of the country would learn of her death.
On May 11, 2020, The 19th published an interview with Palmer as part of the first national story on her case. Taylor’s death, along with those of Ahmaud Arbery in Georgia and George Floyd in Minnesota, sparked national outrage, protests and a racial reckoning in the midst of the pandemic. Palmer began to get answers and feel less alone as millions of Americans learned of her daughter’s case.
Six months after Taylor’s death, the city of Louisville agreed to pay the family $12 million and enact police department reforms. Legislation named for Taylor that would ban no-knock warrants was passed in Louisville and proposed at the federal and state levels. But a Jefferson County grand jury in September of 2020 declined to hold any of the officers criminally responsible for Taylor’s death.
In March of 2021, Palmer called for the Department of Justice to investigate her daughter’s case. In 2022, the department brought civil rights charges against one of the officers, Louisville Metro Police Detective Brett Hankison. His first trial ended in a mistrial; in November 2024 a federal jury convicted Hankison. His sentencing is scheduled for April 8.
“Getting to a guilty verdict for one of the officers took so long,” Palmer said, describing the moment as “historic.”
“I’d started to believe that moment was never coming,” she said. “I’d lost hope, I didn’t know how to believe anymore. In that moment, I remember gasping and finally feeling like I could breathe again. I felt like I could not catch my breath for over four years.”
No officers have been charged at the state or federal level with fatally shooting Taylor.
Palmer said there are moments when she feels like it is her daughter who is on trial.
“Even after a guilty verdict, I still feel like there’s people who still choose to not believe the truth, that the police can do no wrong. I hope they never know what it feels like to have your child killed by the people who are supposed to protect them, and people not care.”
In December, the Justice Department signed a proposed consent decree with the Louisville police department laying out policy and training changes. But days after taking office for his second term, President Donald Trump issued a memo halting consent decrees that could negate the Louisville proposed agreement. It is the latest setback in Palmer’s push for accountability, but she said she is determined to continue seeking justice for her daughter.
“It absolutely feels like we’re in a different country, and I just don’t know what’s going to happen now,” Palmer said. “I want people to continue to do the right thing. I would want to meet with anybody who would want to learn about Breonna and who would want to take the time to understand that what happened shouldn’t have. She’s not the only victim of this type of crime. Breonna is the face for me, but it is so much bigger than Breonna. She wasn’t the first face, she hasn’t been the last face. This is something that should never happen to anyone, ever,”
Palmer said she would be open to meeting with Trump to discuss Taylor’s case. But after sharing Taylor with the world on March 13 for the past few years, she said she wants to mark this anniversary privately.
“I just want to honor her myself,” Palmer said. “I don’t want to argue with the world, I don’t want to share her with the world, I don’t want to have to prove that she deserves justice.”
For the rest of the country marking the tragic milestone, Palmer said she hopes they will remember the beautiful person Taylor was.
“I miss Breonna,” Palmer said. “She died that day, but every day I don’t get to see her, or talk to her or be a part of her life, I feel like I’m dying. I want people to take a moment of silence for her, but still demand justice for her.”
