LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — The U.S. Justice Department has shifted its stance, advising that a former Kentucky police officer, previously found guilty of using excessive force in connection to the fatal Breonna Taylor raid, should not receive a prison sentence. This marks a significant change after years of pursuing legal action against the ex-detective.
Brett Hankison is the sole officer charged for discharging his firearm during the ill-fated March 2020 drug raid. Although his bullets did not harm anyone, they penetrated Taylor’s walls, entering an adjacent apartment.
The fate of Hankison’s sentencing, which could potentially include several years of imprisonment, will be determined by a federal judge during a hearing on Tuesday. Should the judge agree with the Justice Department’s suggestion, it would result in no jail time for any of the Louisville officers connected to the failed raid.
The Justice Department, which has changed leadership under President Donald Trump since Hankison’s conviction, said in a sentencing memo this week that “there is no need for a prison sentence to protect the public” from Hankison. Federal prosecutors asked the judge to sentence him to time served, which amounts to one day, and three years of supervised probation.
Prosecutors at his previous federal trials aggressively pursued a conviction against Hankison, arguing that he blindly fired 10 shots into Taylor’s windows without identifying a target. Taylor was shot in her hallway by two other officers after her boyfriend fired from inside the apartment, striking an officer in the leg.
But in the sentencing memo, federal prosecutors wrote that though Hankison’s “response in these fraught circumstances was unreasonable given the benefit of hindsight, that unreasonable response did not kill or wound Breonna Taylor, her boyfriend, her neighbors, defendant’s fellow officers, or anyone else.”
Civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who helped Taylor’s family secure a $12 million wrongful death settlement against the city of Louisville, said the Justice Department’s recommendation “is an insult to the life of Breonna Taylor and a blatant betrayal of the jury’s decision.”
“Recommending just one day in prison sends the unmistakable message that white officers can violate the civil rights of Black Americans with near-total impunity,” Crump said in a statement on social media.
Three other ex-Louisville police officers have been charged with crafting a falsified warrant, but they have not yet gone to trial. None of them were at the scene when Taylor was shot.
The death of the 26-year-old Black woman, along with the May 2020 police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, sparked racial injustice protests nationwide that year.
A separate jury deadlocked on federal charges against Hankison in 2023, and he was acquitted on state charges of wanton endangerment in 2022.
