A choose within the US state of Kentucky has sentenced a police officer concerned within the 2020 capturing dying of Breonna Taylor to 33 months for violating her civil rights.
The sentencing of officer Brett Hankison was introduced on Monday on the Louisville court docket and represents a repudiation to prosecutors, who had requested he obtain a one-day sentence.
US District Choose Rebecca Grady Jennings sentenced Hankison at a listening to on Monday afternoon. She mentioned that no jail time “shouldn’t be applicable” for Hankison and that she was “startled” that extra individuals had not been injured within the raid.
Taylor, a 26-year-old emergency room technician, was killed in her house within the early hours of March 13, 2020, after police executed a so-called no-knock warrant, trying to storm Taylor’s house unannounced, primarily based on defective proof that her house was concerned in a drug operation.
Pondering they have been experiencing a house invasion, her boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, fired one shot on the suspected intruders. Police responded with roughly 22 photographs, a few of which went right into a neighbour’s house, endangering a pregnant girl, her associate and five-year-old son.
A federal jury in November 2024 discovered Hankison answerable for utilizing extreme drive in violation of Taylor’s civil rights.
However final week, Division of Justice legal professionals requested that Hankison be given a one-day sentence, plus three years of supervised launch, arguing {that a} prolonged sentence could be “unjust”. Hankison shot 10 bullets into the house, although the photographs he fired didn’t hit her.
Demise was a catalyst for requires racial justice
Taylor’s dying, together with the homicide of George Floyd in Minneapolis by the hands of a white police officer, led to racial justice protests throughout the US over the remedy of individuals of color by police departments.
Throughout former President Joe Biden’s administration, the Justice Division introduced felony civil rights fees in opposition to the officers concerned in each Taylor and Floyd’s deaths.
Hankison was convicted by a federal jury in November 2024 of 1 depend of violating Taylor’s civil rights, after the primary try and prosecute him ended with a mistrial.
He was individually acquitted on state fees in 2022.
The Justice Division’s sentencing memo for Hankison downplayed his function within the raid at Taylor’s residence, saying he “didn’t shoot Ms. Taylor and isn’t in any other case answerable for her dying”. The memo was notable as a result of it was not signed by any of the profession prosecutors – those that weren’t political appointees – who had tried the case. It was submitted on July 16 by Harmeet Dhillon, a political appointee by Trump to steer the Justice Division’s Civil Rights Division, and her counsel, Robert Keenan.
Keenan beforehand labored as a federal prosecutor in Los Angeles, the place he argued {that a} native deputy sheriff convicted of civil rights violations, Trevor Kirk, ought to have his conviction on the felony counts struck and mustn’t serve jail time.
The efforts to strike the felony conviction led a number of prosecutors on the case to resign in protest, based on media experiences and an individual aware of the matter.
The division’s sentencing advice within the Hankison case marks the most recent effort by the Trump administration to place the brakes on the division’s police accountability work. Earlier this yr, Dhillon nixed plans to enter right into a court-approved settlement with the Louisville Police Division, and rescinded the Civil Rights Division’s prior findings of widespread civil rights abuses in opposition to individuals of color.
Legal professionals for Taylor’s household known as the division’s sentencing advice for Hankison an insult, and urged the choose to “ship true justice” for her.
On Monday, the Louisville Metro Police Division arrested 4 individuals in entrance of the court docket, who it mentioned have been “creating confrontation, kicking automobiles, or in any other case creating an unsafe atmosphere”. Authorities didn’t listing the fees these arrested would face.
“We perceive this case precipitated ache and broken belief between our division and the neighborhood,” a police assertion mentioned. “We notably respect and worth the first Modification. Nonetheless, what we noticed at present in entrance of the courthouse on the street was not secure, acceptable or authorized.”
A pre-sentencing report by the US Probation Workplace mentioned that Hankison ought to face 135 to 168 months imprisonment on the extreme drive conviction, based on the sentencing memo. However federal prosecutors mentioned a number of elements, together with that Hankison’s two different trials ended with no convictions, ought to tremendously cut back the potential punishment.
