Ex-Kentucky officer convicted of using excessive force against Breonna Taylor

A federal jury on Friday convicted a former Kentucky police detective of using excessive force on Breonna Taylor during a botched 2020 drug raid that left her dead.

The 12-member jury returned the late-night verdict after clearing Brett Hankison earlier in the evening on a charge that he used excessive force on Taylor’s neighbors.

It’s the first conviction of a Louisville police officer who was involved in the deadly raid.

Some members of the jury were in tears as the verdict was read around 9:30 pm Friday. They had earlier indicated to the judge in two separate messages that they were deadlocked on the charge of using excessive force on Taylor but chose to continue deliberating. The six man, six woman jury deliberated for more than 20 hours over three days.

Hankison fired 10 shots into Taylor’s glass door and windows during the raid, but didn’t hit anyone. Some shots flew into a next-door neighbor’s adjoining apartment.

A separate jury deadlocked on federal charges against Hankison last year, while in 2022, a jury acquitted Hankison on state charges of wanton endangerment.

The conviction against Hankison carries a maximum sentence of life in prison.

The death of Taylor, a 26-year-old Black woman, along with the May 2020 police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis sparked racial injustice protests across the U US.

Neither of the officers who shot Taylor – former Sgt John Mattingly and former Det Myles Cosgrove – were charged in Taylor’s death. Federal and state prosecutors have said those officers were justified in returning fire, since Taylor’s boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, shot at them first.

Hankison, 48, argued throughout the trial that he was acting to protect his fellow officers after Taylor’s boyfriend fired on them when they broke down Taylor’s door with a battering ram.

This jury had sent a note on Thursday to the US district judge Rebecca Grady Jennings asking whether they needed to know if Taylor was alive as Hankison fired his shots.

That was a point of contention during closing arguments, when Hankison’s attorney Don Malarcik told the jury that prosecutors must “prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Ms Taylor was alive” when Hankison fired.

After the jury sent the question, Jennings urged them to keep deliberating.

Walker shot and wounded one of the officers. Hankison testified that when Walker fired, he moved away, rounded the corner of the apartment unit and fired into Taylor’s glass door and a window.

Meanwhile, officers at the door returned Walker’s fire, hitting and killing Taylor, who was in a hallway.

Hankison’s lawyers argued during closing statements on Wednesday that Hankison was acting properly “in a very tense, very chaotic environment” that lasted about 12 seconds. They emphasized that Hankison’s shots didn’t hit anyone.

Hankison was one of four officers charged by the US Department of Justice in 2022 with violating Taylor’s civil rights. Thus far, those charges have yielded just one conviction: a plea deal from a former officer who was not at the raid and became a cooperating witness in another case.