Ex-officer cleared in shooting during Breonna Taylor raid
LOUISVILLE, Ky.• A Kentucky jury Thursday cleared a former police officer of charges that he endangered neighbors when he fired shots into an apartment during the 2020 drug raid that ended with Breonna Taylor’s death.
The panel of eight men and four women delivered its verdict about three hours after it took the case following closing arguments from prosecution and defense attorneys.
Brett Hankison had been charged with three counts of wanton endangerment for firing through sliding-glass side doors and a window of Taylor’s apartment during the raid that left the 26-year-old Black woman dead. Hankison’s attorneys never contested the ballistics evidence, but said he fired 10 bullets because he thought his fellow officers were “being executed.”
Hankison did not appear outside the courtroom after the verdict was read. But his attorney Stewart Mathews said he and his client were “thrilled.”
Asked what might have swayed the jury, Mathews replied, “I think it was absolutely the fact that he was doing his job as a police officer. … The jury felt like you go out and perform your duty and your brother officer gets shot, you got a right to defend yourself. Simple as that. ”
Assistant Kentucky Attorney General Barbara Maines Whaley said she respected the jury’s verdict but had no further comment.
Taylor’s mother, Tamika Palmer, and a group of friends and family left without commenting after the verdict. Hankison, 45, testified during the trial that he saw a muzzle flash from Taylor’s darkened hallway after police burst through the door and thought officers were under heavy fire, so he quickly wheeled around a corner and sprayed 10 bullets, hoping to end the threat.
But in closing arguments , prosecutors cast doubt on what Hankison said he saw, challenging whether he could have looked through Taylor’s front door when police broke it open with a battering ram.
“He was never in the doorway,” Whaley told the jury. Referring to Taylor she added, “His wanton conduct could have multiplied her death by three, easily.”
Whaley also reminded the jury that none of the other officers who testified recalled Hankison being in the doorway before the gunfire began. All the shells from his weapon were found in the parking lot, among a row of cars.
Former Louisville police officer Brett Hankison discusses the muzzle flashes that he saw coming from an apartment during a 2020 drug raid as he is questioned by the prosecution Wednesday in Louisville, Ky.