An ex-officer involved in the house raid that led to Breonna Taylor’s murder has been sentenced to nearly three years in prison.
Brett Hankison will serve 33 months in prison for his use of excessive force during the 2020 raid, as reported by The Associated Press. At the raid, Hankison fired ten blind shots into the Louisville home of Taylor. Although none of his bullets struck anyone, his actions have now made him the first officer involved in Taylor’s death to be sentenced to prison.
In her sentencing of Hankison, U.S. District Judge Rebecca Grady Jennings decided against a recommendation by the Department of Justice. The DOJ, currently under Trump Administration leadership, initially sought no prison time for Hankison.
It cited that the ex-officer would potentially face abuse in prison, as well as post-traumatic stress disorder. The decision also factored in two previous trials where Hankison evaded conviction, previously covered by BLACK ENTERPRISE.
The department recommended that he receive only time served, which would amount to one day, with a three-year probationary period. However, Jennings disagreed with the sentencing memo, which was released a week before her sentencing.
Judge Jennings deemed the move “not appropriate” given the jury’s guilty verdict. She argued that the department looked at his actions as an “inconsequential crime” backed by “incongruous” arguments. Furthermore, the judge was “startled” that no one was impacted or even killed by the multiple blind shots by Hankison.
Despite not killing anyone, the ten shots did go into a neighbor’s apartment, just barely missing an uninvolved family. The aggressive nature of the entire incident, which led to Taylor’s death at the hands of another police officer, sparked a slew of Black Lives Matter Protests across Louisville and the country.
The judge was not the only one in disagreement w
ith the DOJ’s recommendation. The Taylor family’s attorney, civil rights lawyer Ben Crump, expressed his immense disappointment with the federal department’s proposal. The lawyer called it “an insult to the life of Breonna Taylor and a blatant betrayal of the jury’s decision.”Taylor’s mother, Tamika Palmer, also felt that the new prosecution over the case did not advocate for a stricter sentence.
“There was no prosecution in there for us,” explained Palmer following the trial. “Brett had his own defense team; I didn’t know he got a second one.”
However, Crump remains “grateful” about Hankison receiving some time. He also hopes that he uses the incarceration to think about Taylor’s life and the incident that took it away. In a family statement, they asserted that while the sentence does not feel like full justice, it still does more than what the DOJ suggested.
“While today’s sentence is not what we had hoped for–– nor does it fully reflect the severity of the harm caused–– it is more than what the Department of Justice sought. That, in itself, is a statement,” shared the Taylor family.
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