A decide within the US state of Kentucky has sentenced a police officer concerned within the 2020 taking pictures demise 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 “just isn’t 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 residence within the early hours of March 13, 2020, after police executed a so-called no-knock warrant, trying to storm Taylor’s residence unannounced, primarily based on defective proof that her residence 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 neighbour’s residence, endangering a pregnant girl, her associate and five-year-old son.
A federal jury in November 2024 discovered Hankison chargeable for utilizing extreme power in violation of Taylor’s civil rights.
However final week, Division of Justice attorneys 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 residence, although the pictures he fired didn’t hit her.
Loss of life was a catalyst for requires racial justice
Taylor’s demise, 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 therapy of individuals of color by police departments.
Throughout former President Joe Biden’s administration, the Justice Division introduced prison 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 function within the raid at Taylor’s house, saying he “didn’t shoot Ms. Taylor and isn’t in any other case chargeable for her demise”. 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 response to media experiences and an individual aware of the matter.
The division’s sentencing suggestion within the Hankison case marks the newest 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.
Attorneys for Taylor’s household referred to as the division’s sentencing suggestion for Hankison an insult, and urged the decide 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 had been “creating confrontation, kicking autos, or in any other case creating an unsafe setting”. Authorities didn’t checklist the fees these arrested would face.
“We perceive this case induced ache and broken belief between our division and the neighborhood,” a police assertion mentioned. “We notably respect and worth the first Modification. Nevertheless, what we noticed right now in entrance of the courthouse on the street was not protected, 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 power conviction, in response to the sentencing memo. However federal prosecutors mentioned a number of components, together with that Hankison’s two different trials ended with no convictions, ought to significantly scale back the potential punishment.
