Ex-police officer sentenced to 33 months for violating Breonna Taylor's rights

[ad_1] Former Louisville, Ky., police officer Brett Hankison was sentenced on Monday to 33 months in jail for violating Breonna Taylor's rights in the course of the raid by which she was shot and killed. The sentencing got here after U.S. President Donald Trump's Justice Division requested the decide to imprison him for a single day.

Taylor, a Black lady, was shot and killed by Louisville cops in March 2020 after they used a no-knock warrant at her residence. Her boyfriend, believing they had been intruders, fired on the officers with a legally owned firearm, prompting them to return hearth.

Taylor's demise, together with the homicide of George Floyd in Minneapolis by the hands of a white police officer, sparked racial justice protests throughout the U.S. over the therapy of individuals of color by police departments.

Throughout former president Joe Biden's administration, the Justice Division introduced legal civil rights costs towards the officers concerned in each Taylor and Floyd's deaths.

Hankison was convicted by a federal jury in November 2024 of 1 depend of violating Taylor's civil rights, after the primary try and prosecute him ended with a mistrial.

<img loading="lazy" alt="A man wearing a blue suit walks along a sidewalk while carrying a leather bag in one hand." srcset="https://i.cbc.ca/1.7590278.1753124826!/fileImage/httpImage/image.JPG_gen/derivatives/original_1180/usa-trump-justice-taylor.JPG?im=Resize%3D300 300w,https://i.cbc.ca/1.7590278.1753124826!/fileImage/httpImage/image.JPG_gen/derivatives/original_1180/usa-trump-justice-taylor.JPG?im=Resize%3D460 460w,https://i.cbc.ca/1.7590278.1753124826!/fileImage/httpImage/image.JPG_gen/derivatives/original_1180/usa-trump-justice-taylor.JPG?im=Resize%3D620 620w,https://i.cbc.ca/1.7590278.1753124826!/fileImage/httpImage/image.JPG_gen/derivatives/original_1180/usa-trump-justice-taylor.JPG?im=Resize%3D780 780w,https://i.cbc.ca/1.7590278.1753124826!/fileImage/httpImage/image.JPG_gen/derivatives/original_1180/usa-trump-justice-taylor.JPG?im=Resize%3D1180 1180w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 300px,(max-width: 460px) 460px,(max-width: 620px) 620px,(max-width: 780px) 780px,(max-width: 1180px) 1180px" src="https://i.cbc.ca/1.7590278.1753124826!/fileImage/httpImage/image.JPG_gen/derivatives/original_1180/usa-trump-justice-taylor.JPG?im=" style="aspect-ratio:1.4993646759847523" data-cy="image-img"/> Former Louisville police officer Brett Hankison arrives on the courthouse Monday forward of his sentencing for violating the rights of Breonna Taylor. The U.S. Division of Justice had really helpful that he obtain a jail time period of a single day. (Jon Cherry/Reuters) No officers charged for Taylor's demise Hankison was individually acquitted on state costs in 2022.

Prosecutors at his earlier federal trials aggressively pursued a conviction towards Hankison, 49, arguing that he blindly fired 10 photographs into Taylor's home windows with out figuring out a goal.

Taylor was shot in her hallway by two different officers after her boyfriend fired from contained in the house, placing an officer within the leg.

Neither of the opposite officers was charged in state or federal court docket after prosecutors deemed they had been justified in returning hearth into the house. Louisville police used a drug warrant to enter the house, however discovered no medicine or money inside.

Final week, the Justice Division really helpful no jail time for Hankison, an abrupt about-face by federal prosecutors that angered critics after the division spent years prosecuting the previous detective.

The Justice Division's sentencing memo for Hankison downplayed his function within the raid at Taylor's residence, saying he "didn't shoot Ms. Taylor and isn't in any other case accountable for her demise."

The memo was notable as a result of it was not signed by any of the profession prosecutors — those that weren't political appointees — who had tried the case. It was submitted on July 16 by Harmeet Dhillon, a political appointee by Trump to guide the Justice Division's Civil Rights Division, and her counsel, Robert Keenan.

Keenan beforehand labored as a federal prosecutor in Los Angeles, the place he argued that Trevor Kirk, a native deputy sheriff convicted of civil rights violations, ought to have his conviction on the felony counts struck and mustn't serve jail time.

The efforts to strike the felony conviction led a number of prosecutors on the case to resign in protest, based on media experiences and an individual accustomed to the matter.

Wrongful demise settlement The division's sentencing advice within the Hankison case marks the newest effort by the Trump administration to place the brakes on the division's police accountability work.

Earlier this 12 months, Dhillon nixed plans to enter right into a court-approved settlement with the Louisville Police Division, and rescinded the Civil Rights Division's prior findings of widespread civil rights abuses towards folks of color.

Civil rights legal professional Ben Crump, who helped Taylor's household safe a $12 million US wrongful demise settlement towards the town of Louisville, had referred to as the Justice Division advice "an insult to the lifetime of Breonna Taylor and a blatant betrayal of the jury's determination."

In a social media assertion, he stated that it "sends the unmistakable message that white officers can violate the civil rights of Black People with near-total impunity."