The Justice Department on Friday asked a federal judge to dismiss the remaining charges against two former Louisville police officers accused of wrongdoing in connection with the search that led to the fatal shooting of Breonna Taylor in 2020.
Taylor, a Black woman, was shot and killed by Louisville police who were carrying out a search warrant at her apartment in March 2020. Federal authorities later brought civil rights charges against officers tied to the deadly raid, accusing two of them — Joshua Jaynes and Kyle Meany — of knowingly using false information to obtain the warrant used to justify the search.
Charges against Jaynes and Meany — both of whom have noted in court papers that they were not present during the raid — had already been reduced twice before. In a court filing Friday, the Justice Department highlighted that history and wrote that it had determined the remaining case “should be dismissed in the interest of justice.” The agency also said it wanted the lingering charges dropped with prejudice, meaning they cannot be refiled later.
The filing came a little more than six years after Taylor’s death. Officers serving the warrant at her apartment shortly after midnight broke down the door, and Taylor’s boyfriend, fearing intruders, fired a shot, striking one of the officers. Police opened fire in response, hitting Taylor six times. Taylor’s death, followed weeks later by George Floyd’s in Minneapolis, prompted immense protests and outrage.
During President Joe Biden’s administration, the Justice Department indicted four current and former Louisville officers in relation to Taylor’s death, including Jaynes and Meany. According to the August 2022 indictment, Jaynes and Meany knew that an affidavit used to obtain the search warrant for Taylor’s apartment “contained information that was false, misleading, and out-of-date.”
The affidavit was sworn by Jaynes, a detective, and approved by Meany, a sergeant and supervisor, the indictment said.
A superseding indictment in the case filed in 2024 said authorities in Louisville were conducting searches of properties allegedly related to drug trafficking and were focusing on a man “who had previously had a personal relationship with Taylor.” The affidavit said Jaynes saw this man make “frequent trips” between Taylor’s apartment and other locations linked to drug trafficking, which was untrue, according to this indictment.
Senior District Judge Charles R. Simpson III dismissed without prejudice felony charges against Jayes and Meany last summer, noting that he had also dismissed charges in the case in a previous order.
In August 2025, Simpson saidthat while he was “seriously troubled by the claimed falsehoods” in the case, federal authorities “cannot attribute Taylor’s death to the lack of a warrant supported by probable cause.” Instead, Simpson wrote, the shooting “is a case of legal, lethal and tragic crossfire that was not initiated by police.”
The Justice Department said on Friday in its court filing that it had carried out “a further review of this matter” before deciding to seek the dismissal. The agency portrayed the decision afterward as taking aim at “weaponized federal overreach.”
“Neither of these officers was present during the shooting, and a district court has already repeatedly dismissed the most serious charges as completely unsupportable,” a Justice Department spokesperson said in a statement. “These cases represented the kind of inappropriate, weaponized federal overreach that this Department of Justice no longer tolerates.”
Travis B. Lock, an attorney for Jaynes, wrote in an email that “we are elated with this development” but declined to comment further until Simpson rules on the Justice Department’s motion.
“Kyle is incredibly grateful for today’s filing,” Michael Denbow, an attorney for Meany, said in a statement. “He is looking forward to putting this matter behind him and moving forward with his life.”
Kristen Clarke, who oversaw the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division under Biden, assailed the effort to drop the charges.
“This move is indefensible, callous and unsupported by the facts and the law,” Clarke said in a statement. “Their attempt to dismiss this case is further evidence of this Justice Department’s abdication of its duty and responsibility to evenhandedly enforce the law. The timing of it all is particularly heartless as communities continue to mark the 6 year anniversary of her tragic murder.”
During Biden’s term, the Justice Department put an emphasis on police accountability and oversight, investigating local departments and concluding that some had violated the Constitution. Following investigations into departments in Minneapolis and Louisville, the Justice Department reached agreements with officials in both places to impose significant changes to their police forces.
Last year, though, President Donald Trump’s administration reversed course, declaring that it was abandoning the agreements with Louisville and Minneapolis and retracting the findings of investigations into other departments. This announcement was made in May 2025, just days before the fifth anniversary of Floyd’s death, spurring more outrage.
Soon after, the Justice Department asked that Brett Hankison — another former Louisville police officer, and the first directly involved in the Taylor raid to be convicted on criminal charges — be sentenced to one day in prison.
In an unusual sentencing memo, the Justice Department suggested Hankison should not have been prosecuted on the civil rights charge he faced. Hankison was sentenced to 33 months, though he was released in December while his appeal is ongoing.
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