US ex-policeman sentenced to 33 months over fatal Breonna Taylor raid

LeMonde

5 days ago

A US federal judge on Monday, July 21, rejected an appeal for leniency by the Justice Department and sentenced an ex-police officer to 33 months in prison for violating the civil rights of Breonna Taylor, a Black woman whose 2020 killing fueled widespread protests. Brett Hankison, a former Louisville police department detective, was convicted by a jury in Kentucky in November, for having abused Taylor's civil rights by firing shots during a botched police raid on her home.
In an unusual intervention last week, Harmeet Dhillon, the head of the Justice Department's (DOJ) civil rights division, asked Judge Rebecca Jennings to sentence Hankison to time served: the single day he spent in jail at the time of his arrest.
However, Jennings, who was appointed to the bench by US President Donald Trump during his first term as president, rejected the recommendation and said she was troubled by the prosecutor's sentencing memorandum and arguments for leniency, the Louisville Courier Journal said. She sentenced him to 33 months in prison and three years of supervised release. Hankison faced a maximum penalty of life in prison.
'Continue to call out the DOJ's failure'
Dhillon, in her sentencing memorandum to the judge, had argued that a lengthy prison term for Hankison would be "unjust." "Hankison did not shoot Ms. Taylor and is not otherwise responsible for her death," she said. "Hankison did not wound her or anyone else at the scene that day, although he did discharge his duty weapon 10 times blindly into Ms. Taylor's home."
Responding to Monday's verdict, the Taylor family's lawyers noted that while the sentence did not "fully reflect the severity of the harm caused," it was "more than what the Department of Justice sought." "We respect the court's decision, but we will continue to call out the DOJ's failure to stand firmly behind Breonna's rights and the rights of every Black woman whose life is treated as expendable," they said in a statement.
Biden-era discrimination lawsuits dropped
Taylor and her boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, were sleeping in her Louisville apartment around midnight on March 13, 2020, when they heard a noise at the door. Walker, believing it was a break-in, fired his gun, wounding a police officer. Police, who had obtained a controversial no-knock search warrant to make a drug arrest, fired more than 30 shots back, mortally wounding Taylor.
Hankison fired 10 shots during the raid, some into a neighboring apartment, but did not hit anyone. He is the only police officer convicted in connection with the raid.
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The deaths of Taylor, 26, and George Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man who was murdered by a white police officer in Minneapolis in May 2020, became the focus of a wave of mass protests in the United States and beyond against racial injustice and police brutality.
In May, the Justice Department announced that it was dropping lawsuits filed by the administration of former president Joe Biden against police forces in Louisville and Minneapolis that accused them of using excessive force and racial discrimination.