A FORMER police detective was found not guilty and cleared of all charges for firing into Breonna Taylor’s neighbor’s home. Brett Hankison was not on trial for Taylor’s death. Instead, he was facing charges for firing bullets that went into an adjacent apartment, endangering a pregnant neighbor, her young child and her boyfriend. Hankison was […]
A FORMER police detective was found not guilty and cleared of all charges for firing into Breonna Taylor’s neighbor’s home.
Brett Hankison was not on trial for Taylor’s death. Instead, he was facing charges for firing bullets that went into an adjacent apartment, endangering a pregnant neighbor, her young child and her boyfriend.
Hankison was fired from the police force in June 2020 and charged in September that same year with “wanton endangerment” for wildly and blindly shooting into the adjacent apartments during the raid.
The former narcotics detective testified in his defense on Wednesday about his actions during the police raid that left Taylor, 26, dead.
Hankison said that as a police battering ram broke open the 26-year-old’s door, the blast of a gun lit up the apartment’s hallway, and his fellow officer fell wounded in the doorway.
Hankison admitted to shooting through Taylor’s patio door and bedroom window but said he did so to save his fellow officers.
Hankison said he thought someone was firing an automatic rifle at his fellow officers.
When asked if he did anything wrong that night, he said, “absolutely not.”
Prosecutors doubted whether Hankison could see into Taylor’s front door when the first shot was fired.
“He was never in the doorway,” Barbara Maines Whaley told jurors in her closing argument.
“His wanton conduct could have multiplied one tragic death, Breonna Taylor, his wanton conduct could have multiplied her death by three, easily.”
Defense attorney Stewart Mathews said Hankison thought he was doing the right thing in what he thought was a gun battle and that he’s not a criminal who belongs in prison.
“He did what he thought he had to do in that instant. This all happened in such a short span,” Mathews said.
Taylor, an emergency room aide, was shot dead by police at her home in Louisville, Kentucky, on March 13 when cops executed a no-knock warrant at her apartment as she slept with her boyfriend, Kenneth Walker.
Police said Walker fired once at them, giving them cause to fire back, killing Taylor but not hitting Walker.
Investigators later determined only one round was fired by Taylor’s boyfriend, who said he thought an intruder was breaking in.
The other 32 bullets fired in the raid came from the police.
Alongside Hankison, officers Jonathan Mattingly and Myles Cosgrove responded to the scene that left Taylor dead.
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