A federal jury on Friday convicted former Louisville, Kentucky police detective Brett Hankison of using excessive force during the 2020 raid that resulted in the death of Breonna Taylor.
After 20 hours of deliberation over three days, the jury found the former officer guilty of violating Taylor’s civil rights. This marks the first conviction of any of the officers who participated in the raid.
Taylor’s case, along with George Floyd’s in Minneapolis, Minnesota, sparked widespread protests and unrest against police misconduct across the country.
“Breonna Taylor’s life mattered,” said Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, in a press release after the decision. “We hope the jury’s verdict recognizing this violation of Ms. Taylor’s civil and constitutional rights brings some small measure of comfort to her family and loved ones who have suffered so deeply from the tragic events of March 2020.”
Tamika Palmer, Breonna Taylor’s mother, lauded the verdict. “It took a lot of time. It took a lot of patience. It was hard,” she said, according to CBS News. “The jurors took their time to really understand that Breonna deserved justice.”
Hankison’s attorneys argued that he fired his weapon to protect fellow officers when Taylor’s boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, fired a shot at the officers breaking down Taylor’s door. Despite firing 10 rounds through a glass door and windows, none of Hankison’s rounds struck Taylor or Walker, according to The Associated Press. However, one round flew into a neighbor’s apartment, which endangered its residents. The prosecution argued that the officer’s actions constituted a reckless disregard for human life.
Don Malarcik, Hankison’s defense attorney, described the chaotic scene during the raid in his closing arguments. He pointed out that Hankison “was 12 inches away from being shot by Kenneth Walker,” according to CBS News.
However, prosecutors emphasized that the former officer “violated one of the most fundamental rules of deadly force: If they cannot see the person they’re shooting at, they cannot pull the trigger.”
The Justice Department previously filed civil rights charges against three other officers involved in the raid, referring to problems with the affidavit used to obtain the warrant to search Taylor’s apartment. The agency indicated that the officers falsified the affidavit, violating the victim’s Fourth Amendment rights, and tried to cover up their conduct.
The prosecutors alleged that the officers used false, misleading, and outdated information to convince a judge to sign off on the warrant. In August 2024, a federal judge dismissed the felony charges against two of the other officers, ruling that Walker’s actions were the legal cause of Taylor’s death, not the faulty warrant.
Black Lives Matter’s Louisville chapter seized on Taylor’s death as an example of police brutality against Black Americans. In a Facebook post from April 2021, Palmer criticized the group, saying she had “never personally dealt with BLM Louisville and personally have found them to be a fraud.”
Another jury had not come to a verdict on federal charges in 2023. Hankison was acquitted by Kentucky on charges of wanton endangerment in 2022. However, after the federal conviction, he could be facing a maximum sentence of life in prison. He is set to be sentenced on March 12, 2025, by U.S. District Judge Rebecca Grady Jennings.
We’ll keep you posted.
