Former Kentucky officer found guilty of violating Breonna Taylor’s civil rights

A former Kentucky police officer was found guilty Friday of violating Breonna Taylor’s civil rights during the The March 2020 police raid that killed her.

A jury returned its verdict Friday night in the trial of former Louisville metro police detective Brett Hankison after returning a partial verdict acquitting him of a separate charge of violating the rights of Taylor’s neighbors. It is Hankison’s second federal trial, with the jury hearing testimony from more than a dozen witnesses in the past two weeks.

Federal prosecutors had hoped to convince the jury that Hankison flagrantly violated police department policy and endangered several people inside the apartment complex.

But Hankison’s defense said the former detective’s actions were justified based on his belief at the time that he had saved the lives of fellow officers. During closing arguments, his lawyers also introduced an 11th-hour defense that questioned if Taylor was still alive when Hankison fired his rounds, which proved to be a sticking point for jurors during deliberations.

Despite the defense, the jury—consisting of five white men, one black man and six white women—returned a guilty verdict after three days of deliberations.

Following the verdict, members of Taylor’s family broke down in tears and hugged immediately after leaving the courtroom. Prosecutors requested that Hankison be immediately arrested, but the judge denied their request.

The killing of Taylor, a 26-year-old black woman, sparked months of demonstrations, prompted nationwide legislation and resulted in a $12 million civil settlement with her family.

Related: How Brett Hankison’s federal retrial is different from his first

Filming Breonna Taylor: What Happened That Night

Taylor, an emergency room technician, was in her apartment when she he was fatally shot by plainclothes officers around 12:40 p.m. on March 13, 2020, during a botched narcotics investigation.

The officerswho say they knocked and announced themselves several times before their forced entry, tried to serve a search warrant. Neither Taylor nor her boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, who was in the apartment at the time, were the targets of the investigation, and no drugs were found in the home. Walker and several neighbors also say they did not hear the officers identify themselves as law enforcement.

As officers entered, Walker fired a shot from a handgun that struck an officer, then Sgt. John Mattingly, in the leg. Walker later said he thought the officers had been trespassed.

Hankison, who had been with Louisville metro police for about 17 years at the time of the raid and was one of three officers who discharged their weapons that night, fired ten rounds into Taylor’s apartment through a door and window covered glass.

Three of those runs traveled in an adjoining apartment with a man, a pregnant woman and a 5-year-old child inside. None of the rounds fired by Hankison hit Taylor or any of the neighbors.

Hankison was charged federally with violating the civil rights of Taylor and three neighbors in the apartment next door. An initial trial on these charges ended with a null trial in November 2023, when jurors could not agree on a verdict.

Hankison is scheduled to be sentenced on March 12. He faces a maximum sentence of life in prison.

Amid deliberations, the jury asks: Was Breonna Taylor a “living victim”?

About five hours into deliberations, the jury sent a question to the judge and attorneys asking if they “needed to know if Breonna Taylor was a living victim when Hankison fired (his gun).”

Jury instructions agreed to by the prosecution and defense Hankison is accused of depriving Taylor, a “living victim,” of her rights.

In the defense’s closing argument, attorney Don Malarcik argued that prosecutors had provided no evidence that Taylor was alive when Hankison fired his rounds that prosecutors say “buzzed over” Taylor’s head. In his rebuttal, prosecutor Michael Songer argued that Taylor was still alive in the seconds between when she was struck by gunfire from other officers and when Hankison fired, asking jurors to use “your common sense.”

After questioning the jurors, the attorneys agreed to tell them to rely on the reading of the instructions given.

After another 10 hours of deliberations, the jury sent a note to the judge Friday afternoon, saying it believed it could not reach a unanimous verdict. Judge Rebecca Grady Jennings brought jurors back into the courtroom to issue an Allen charge, prompting them to reach a verdict.

After another five hours of deliberation, the jury sent back a note that they “continue to disagree on one point.” After bringing them back into the courtroom, Jennings told them they had the option of returning a partial verdict on one count — the violation of the civil rights of either Taylor or the three neighbors: Cody Etherton, Chelsey Napper and the child their little – and potentially to continue. to deliberate on the other.

They returned a not guilty verdict on the neighbor charges around 7 p.m. and returned to the courtroom about two and a half hours later with a guilty verdict on the Taylor charge.

What other officers were charged in the Breonna Taylor case?

Hankison was one of the four men federally taxed regarding the raid on taylor’s apartment. The others are former officers Joshua Jaynes, Kelly Goodlett and Kyle Meany.

Meany and Jaynes were charged with federal civil rights and obstruction charges related to the preparation and approval of a false search warrant.

Goodlett was charged with one count of conspiring with Jaynes to forge the search warrant for Taylor’s home and cover up their actions. In August 2022, she pleaded guilty to that charge. She is expected to be a star witness at judgment of Jaynes and Meany.

Reach reporter Rachel Smith at [email protected] or @RachelSmithNews on X, formerly known as Twitter.

This article originally appeared on the Louisville Courier Journal: Ex-officer found guilty of violating Breonna Taylor’s civil rights