Cop Who Fired Blindly Into Breonna Taylor’s Home Is Convicted of Violating Her Constitutional Rights
Louisville, Kentucky, police did a lot of questionable things before, during, and after the March 2020 drug raid that killed Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old EMT and aspiring nurse. Their lapses included a misleading, legally deficient search warrant affidavit; a reckless, middle-of-the-night home invasion that led to a lethal confrontation; and a conspiracy to cover up the misrepresentations that preceded the raid. But the most baffling aspect of the incident was Detective Brett Hankison’s decision to blindly fire 10 rounds from outside Taylor’s apartment through a bedroom window and a sliding glass door that were covered by blinds and curtains.
On Friday, after deliberating for more than 20 hours over three days, a federal jury in Louisville convicted Hankison of willfully violating Taylor’s Fourth Amendment rights under color of law by firing five rounds through the bedroom window. Although none of the bullets struck Taylor, federal prosecutors argued that Hankison endangered her life by unlawfully using deadly force.
Because the charge “involved the use of a dangerous weapon and an attempt to kill,” Hankison faces a maximum sentence of life in prison. The jury acquitted him of a second count under the same statute, which alleged that he violated the constitutional rights of Taylor’s neighbors, who were endangered by bullets that penetrated their apartment.
Hankison, who was fired from his job with the Louisville Metro Police Department in June 2020, is the only officer directly involved in the raid to be convicted of a crime. In March 2022, a state jury acquitted him of wanton endangerment, a charge based on the same use of force. Hankison was indicted on federal civil rights charges five months later. Last year, his first prosecution on those charges ended with a mistrial after jurors failed to reach a verdict.
During his second federal trial, Hankison again testified that he was trying to help two fellow officers inside Taylor’s apartment, Sgt. Jonathan Mattingly and Detective Myles Cosgrove, thinking they were under sustained fire. Here is what was actually happening, as described in a Justice Department press release about Hankison’s conviction:
During the execution of the warrant at Taylor’s home, officers knocked on Taylor’s door and announced themselves as police at approximately 12:45 a.m. No one answered the door, and the officers saw no indication that anyone in the home was awake or had heard their announcement. The police then rammed the door open and Taylor’s boyfriend, believing that intruders were breaking in, fired his handgun one time at officers, two of whom fired back, hitting and killing Taylor.
Taylor’s boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, has consistently said he heard no announcement and had no idea the intruders who had broken into the apartment were police officers. He was initially charged with attempted murder of a police officer, but prosecutors dropped that charge two months later, implicitly conceding that Walker had a strong self-defense claim. The bullet he fired struck Mattingly in the leg. In response, Mattingly and Cosgrove fired a total of 22 rounds down a dark hallway, where Taylor, who was unarmed, was standing near Walker.
Hankison, who could not see what was happening because he had moved from the doorway to the side of the apartment, testified that he mistook his colleagues’ hail of bullets for gunfire from a semi-automatic rifle. “I saw those windows and doors lighting up,” he said. “It looked like there was a strobe light in there….In my mind, an AR-15 is being shot, and it sounds like it’s getting closer and louder.” He added that it “sounded like a semiautomatic rifle making its way down the hallway and executing everybody.”
Even so, Hankison’s response is hard to fathom, since he had no way of knowing who might be hit by his rounds. The Associated Press notes that “several witnesses, including Louisville’s police chief,” testified that Hankison “violated Loui
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