A choose within the US state of Kentucky has sentenced a police officer concerned within the 2020 taking pictures 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 courtroom and represents a repudiation to prosecutors, who had requested he obtain a one-day sentence.
US District Decide Rebecca Grady Jennings sentenced Hankison at a listening to Monday afternoon. She mentioned that no jail time “shouldn’t be applicable” for Hankison and mentioned she was ” startled” that there weren’t extra folks injured within the raid.
Taylor, a 26-year-old emergency room technician, was killed in her condo within the early hours of March 13, 2020, after police executed a so-called no-knock warrant, trying to storm Taylor’s condo unannounced, primarily based on defective proof that her condo was concerned in a drug operation.
Considering they had been experiencing a house invasion, her boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, fired one shot on the suspected intruders. Police responded with roughly 22 pictures, a few of which went right into a neighbor’s condo, endangering a pregnant girl, her companion, and five-year-old son.
A federal jury in November 2024 discovered Hankison accountable 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 can be “unjust”. Hankison shot 10 bullets into the condo, although the pictures he fired didn’t hit her.
Dying 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 america over the remedy of individuals of color by police departments.
Throughout former President Joe Biden’s administration, the Justice Division introduced legal 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 rely 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 position within the raid at Taylor’s house, saying he “didn’t shoot Ms. Taylor and isn’t in any other case accountable 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 shouldn’t serve jail time.
The efforts to strike the felony conviction led a number of prosecutors on the case to resign in protest, in accordance with media stories and an individual conversant in 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 folks of color.
Legal professionals for Taylor’s household referred to 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 folks in entrance of the courthouse who it mentioned had been “creating confrontation, kicking automobiles, or in any other case creating an unsafe surroundings.” Authorities didn’t listing the fees these arrested would face.
“We perceive this case brought on 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 right this moment in entrance of the courthouse on the street was not protected, acceptable or authorized.”
A US Probation Workplace presentencing report mentioned Hankison ought to face a variety of 135 to 168 months imprisonment on the extreme drive conviction, in accordance with the memo. However federal prosecutors mentioned a number of components – together with that Hankison’s two different trials ended with no convictions – ought to significantly cut back the potential punishment
