A Louisville police officer convicted in connection with a botched raid that resulted in Breonna Taylor’s death was sentenced on Monday to more than two years in prison, days after the government had asked a judge not to incarcerate him.
Brett Hankison, a former Louisville Metro Police Department detective, was found guilty last year of violating Taylor’s civil rights after he blindly fired shots into her apartment in March 2020 during the drug raid.
Hankison faced a maximum sentence of life in prison but was instead ordered to serve 33 months incarcerated, or two years and nine months, according to the Associated Press.
Shot and killed by other officers during the raid, Taylor became a face of the Black Lives Matter movement that caught fire that year after her death and the police killing of George Floyd, sparking nationwide protests.
Though Hankison’s shots did not injure anyone, prosecutors said at trial that he acted recklessly and violated a fundamental rule of deadly force: “If they cannot see the person they’re shooting at, they cannot pull the trigger.”
But on Thursday, the Justice Department changed course.
DOJ civil rights chief Harmeet Dhillon and a senior counselor in the division asked U.S. District Judge Grady Jennings to sentence Hankison to time served — amounting to just one day, which he spent being booked and making his initial appearance before a judge. The government also suggested three years of supervised release.
“Reasonable minds certainly might disagree whether, even if Defendant Hankison’s conduct did constitute a seizure, a prosecution under this statute should have been brought under these circumstances at all,” the unusual sentencing memorandum read.
Neither Dhillon nor Robert Keenan, the senior counselor, were part of the initial prosecution team. The about-face marked a sharp departure from the Biden administration’s efforts to force accountability for the role of racial discrimination in police misconduct.
The U.S. Probation Office suggested a sentence of 135 to 168 months in prison, or about 11 to 14 years in prison, for the excessive force conviction.
The Justice Department said the guidelines resulting in that recommendation “do not fairly apply” in Hankison’s case, particularly because of previous failed efforts to convict him.
The ex-detective was previously acquitted on all three counts he faced during a 2022 trial in Kentucky state court. The first federal trial he faced, in 2023, resulted in a mistrial on both charges against him. And the subsequent retrial in 2024 resulted in his conviction.
The officers who shot and killed Taylor have not been charged, since prosecutors determined they were justified in firing. The 26-year-old’s boyfriend fired first from inside the apartment, striking an officer’s leg. No drugs were found during the raid.
Four people were arrested in front of the courthouse Monday for “creating confrontation, kicking vehicles or otherwise creating an unsafe environment,” according to the AP. Local outlets reported that Taylor’s aunt was among those arrested. Their charges were not immediately known.
The Associated Press contributed.
