Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam has signed a measure known as “Breonna’s Law” that bans police from using no-knock search warrants.
The bill, passed Monday during a special session of the Virginia General Assembly, allows search warrants to only be served during daylight hours unless law enforcement can show a judge or magistrate a reason to serve a warrant at night, a local NBC News affiliate reported.
“These are not anti-police measures, these are pro-people laws,” the Democratic governor said upon signing the new legislation, the NBC affiliate reported. “They’re about making our justice system fair and more equitable and they’re about rebuilding trust between our law enforcement and the communities they serve.”
Breonna Taylor, 26, was fatally shot in March while inside her Louisville, Kentucky, apartment by police executing a no-knock warrant.
The measure was signed as members of Taylor’s family and civil rights attorney Ben Crump looked on, making Virginia the third state to sign such a bill into law.
“The Commonwealth of Virginia. Only the third state in the nation has taken a bold stand against no-knock warrants, an institutional mechanism that disproportionately terrorizes people of color. Virginia is getting it right,” Dr. Janice Underwood, Virginia’s chief diversity officer, said in a statement, the affiliate reported.
