Officers shot dead Breonna Taylor in her home in Louisville, Kentucky, in March 2020, in one of a series of high-profile killings that exposed police brutality and discrimination against African Americans.

The searing conclusions of the Justice Department (DOJ) probe found Louisville police “practiced an aggressive style of policing that it deploys selectively, especially against Black people.”

US Attorney General Merrick Garland, who announced the investigation in April 2021, said Wednesday that the conduct of the Louisville police department “undermined its public safety mission and strained its relationship with the community it’s meant to protect and serve.”

The DOJ initiated the investigation in April 2021, following the death of Breonna Taylor, an African-American woman who was killed in 2020 by police officers while executing an arrest warrant in her apartment.

The investigation concluded that the Louisville Metropolitan Police Department (LMPD) often selectively uses an “aggressive style of policing” against “vulnerable” individuals citywide, specifically Black people.

The report stated that some police officers engaged in such despicable practices as throwing drinks at pedestrians from their cars, insulting the disabled, and calling African Americans monkeys and animals.

It was also found that certain law enforcement officers issued citations to individuals for minor offenses such as having a broken taillight on their vehicle, while allowing investigations of serious crimes including homicide and sexual assault to go unsolved.

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