Justice For Breonna Taylor: Ex-Cop Distorts Truth About No-Knock Raid During Retrial

 

UPDATED: 12:30 p.m. ET, Oct. 29, 2024

It’s been more than four years and the family of Breonna Taylor still hasn’t gotten justice for her shooting death.

Brett Hankison, the officer involved in the tragic shooting of Breonna Taylor in March 2020, claimed that he perceived the sound of a gunshot coming from the direction of the 26-year-old medical worker’s home, before he and members of his department opened fire on that tragic day. According to the Associated Press, during his retrial, which took place Oct. 28, Hankison stated that he felt the “percussion” of a shot before he attempted to fire into Taylor’s home. 

The percussion of a gunshot refers to the shockwave and pressure created when a bullet is fired. This includes the sound produced by the explosion of gunpowder and the rapid expansion of gases as the bullet exits the barrel, according to RIA. The term can also encompass the physical sensations felt in the surrounding area, such as vibrations or a concussive blast, especially if someone is close to the gun when it’s fired.

After feeling the “percussion” of the shot, the former officer claimed that he looked inside Taylor’s apartment and saw someone in a “rifle stance” facing toward him and the officers that were present on scene. As previously reported, Hankison and his teamed used a no-knock warrant to enter Taylor’s home as part of a narcotics investigation.

Hankison then moved away from the doorway and swung around to the side of the unit, he said. At that point, two other officers were shooting into the doorway, prompting Hankison to believe there was a back-and-forth gun battle, he testified, according to the Associated Press. 

“In my mind, an AR-15 is being shot and it sounds like it’s getting closer and louder,” Hankison said, adding that it “sounded like a semiautomatic rifle making its way down the hallway and executing everybody in my (group).”

Taylor’s boyfriend fired a single shot when officers forced their way in with a battering ram. In response, police unleashed a rapid barrage of 32 shots, at least six of which struck and fatally wounded her.  Hankison reportedly fired 10 shots, non of which hit Taylor. Bullets from his firearm flew into a neighbor’s apartment nearby. Hankison is the only officer to have faced a jury trial related to Taylor’s death.

Hankison stated that the night of the botched drug raid marked the first time he had discharged his weapon in nearly two decades of policing. Several witnesses, including Louisville’s police chief, have testified that Hankison violated police policy, which mandates that officers identify their target before firing. In a separate indictment, he was also charged with using excessive force while executing the search warrant. 

Hankison has consistently maintained his innocence throughout the case. On the night of the tragic shooting, the former officer stated that he saw bright flashes of light through the curtains on the glass door and window, which led him to believe that the shooter inside was still firing at the officers. “I saw those windows and doors lighting up,” Hankison told the court on Monday. “It looked like there was a strobe light in there.”

Prosecutors are set to cross-examine Hankison on Tuesday, Oct. 29, in the ongoing trial at U.S. District Court, now in its third week.

 

Where’s the accountability?

The new development comes just two months after a federal judge dismissed felony charges against two ex-cops from Louisville who were accused of falsifying the warrant that led to the fatal police shooting of Breonna Taylor.

In August 2022, Louisville detective Joshua Jaynes and Sgt. Kyle Meany was federally charged with falsifying the affidavit used to conduct the reckless search.  U.S. Attorney General Merrick accused the officers of purposefully falsifying part of the warrant and putting Taylor in a dangerous situation.

According to AP, U.S. District Judge Charles Simpson ruled the warrant was not the cause of her death. Instead, Judge Simpson said the actions of Taylor’s boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, were the legal cause of her death and not the bad warrant.

 “There is no direct link between the warrantless entry and Taylor’s death,” Judge Simpson wrote after his ruling.

He continued, saying “While the indictment alleges that Jaynes and Meany set off a series of events that ended in Taylor’s death, it also alleges that (Walker) disrupted those events when he decided to open fire” on the police, Simpson wrote.

Simpson’s decision reduced the civil rights violations, which carried a maximum life sentence, to misdemeanors.

Breonna Taylor’s family pushed back on the ruling saying they plan to appeal.

“Obviously we are devastated at the moment by the judge’s ruling with which we disagree and are just trying to process everything,” Taylor’s family wrote in a statement to the Associated Press. “The only thing we can do at this point is continue to be patient … we will continue to fight until we get full justice for Breonna Taylor.”

A third officer, Kelly Goodlett, who pleaded guilty in 2022 to conspiracy charges, is still expected to testify against Jaynes and Meany at their trials.

 

In 2023, a judge declared a mistrial in the federal civil rights trial of the ex-Louisville police officer charged in the police raid that killed Breonna Taylor.

According to AP, after days of deliberation, the 12-member jury of mostly white people couldn’t agree on a unanimous verdict for Brett Hankison, which led U.S. District Judge Rebecca Grady Jennings to declare a mistrial. 

From AP:

The judge reported there were “elevated voices” coming from the jury room at times during deliberations, and court security officials had to visit the room. Jurors then told the judge Thursday they were deadlocked on both counts against Hankison, and could not come to a decision.

“I think the totality of the circumstances may be beyond repair in this case,” Judge Jennings said. “They have a disagreement that they cannot get past.”

Hankison isn’t out of hot water just yet. The mistrial could lead to a retrial of the former officer, which will be determined by federal prosecutors at a later time.

The trial for Brett Hankison Began Nov 13.

The federal trial of former Louisville police officer Brett Hankison began Nov 13. According to the Associated Press, a jury deliberated for over an hour on Monday as federal prosecutors grilled Hankison about his involvement in the botched raid that ultimately took the life of 26-year-old Breonna Taylor. He has been accused of violating Taylor’s civil rights.

During his testimony Monday, Hankison said that he fired bullets into Taylor’s window and sliding door as Louisville officers conducted a drug search of the young EMS worker’s apartment in March 2020. Hankison testified that he did not see a shooter when he opened fire, but he claimed that he saw “muzzle flashes from gunfire” erupting from inside the apartment, the Associated Press noted.

Unaware that the police were conducting a raid, Taylor’s boyfriend Kenneth Walker III fired his gun once at the door out of self-defense as Hankison and at least seven other officers forced entry into the apartment. Sadly, Taylor was shot and killed when officers fired off 32 rounds inside her apartment.

The former police officer, who was fired from the Louisville Metro Police Department (LMPD) for shooting “blindly” during the chaotic drug raid, claimed that he shot into Taylor’s apartment to “stop the threat” of Walker’s gun and to “defend” himself and the lives of his team.

In 2022, Hankison was acquitted by a jury during his felony wanton endangerment trial after a judge deemed that he was innocent of endangering one of Taylor’s neighbors during the violent drug investigation. The charge was not connected to Taylor’s fatal shooting. However, on Monday’s trial, federal prosecutors argued that Hankison’s actions played a role in the EMS worker’s demise. Prosecutor Michael Songer claimed that the former Louisville officer “dishonored” his team and that he was aware “firing blindly was wrong” on the day of the shooting.

At the end of the first day of the intense civil rights trial, the former officer’s attorney, Stewart Mathews, pled for the jury to consider the “chaos” Hankison was “surrounded with” as he tried to “protect the lives of his fellow officers and himself.”

As previously reported, investigators discovered that a bogus no-knock warrant was used during the tragic shooting of Breonna Taylor in 2020. 

In August 2022, four of the officers involved in the fatal shooting were federally charged with violating Taylor’s civil rights during the botched raid. Kentucky detectives Kelly Goodlett and Joshua Jaynes were charged with falsifying the affidavit used to conduct the reckless search. In a separate indictment, Brett Hankison was charged with using excessive force while executing the search warrant.

In March, the Justice Department (DOJ) released a scathing 90-page report detailing the grim and discriminatory law enforcement tactics that have long plagued LMPD. The two-year investigation was spawned by Taylor’s fatal shooting.