A former Kentucky police officer was sentenced on Monday to nearly three years imprisonment for using excessive force during the 2020 raid that led to the death of Breonna Taylor.
The federal judge involved in sentencing rejected the US Justice Department’s recommendation for no prison time for Brett Hankison, who fired 10 shots during the botched drug raid but did not hit anyone.
Hankison was the only office on the scene charged with Taylor’s death. He is the first person sentenced to prison in connection with the case that fuelled nationwide protests against police brutality across the US.
US District Judge Rebecca Grady Jennings said no prison time “is not appropriate” and would minimise a jury’s verdict from November. Jennings said she was “startled” there weren’t more people injured in the rain from Hankison’s blind shots.
She sentenced the 49-year-old to 33 months in prison for the conviction of use of excessive force with three years of supervised probation to follow the prison term.
The 26-year-old's Breonna Taylor’s death, along with the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, sparked racial injustice and police brutality protests nationwide in 2020.
Taylor was shot in her hallway by two officers after her boyfriend fired from inside the apartment, striking an officer in the leg. Neither of the other officers was charged in state or federal court after prosecutors deemed they were justified in returning fire into the apartment.
Louisville police used a drug warrant to enter Taylor's apartment but found no drugs or cash inside.
Three other police officers have been charged with crafting a falsified warrant in the Taylor case, but none have gone to trial. None were at the scene when Taylor was shot.
The warrant used to enter her apartment was one of five issued that night in search of evidence on an alleged drug dealer that Taylor once had an associated with.
