DOJ says ex-officer convicted in Breonna Taylor raid should get 1 day in jail
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Artist Claudine Anrather wearing a mask holds her hand-painted sign tribute to Breonna Taylor in Union Square Park, N.Y. Photo: Ira L. Black/Corbis via Getty Images
A former Louisville police detective convicted of violating Breonna Taylor's rights by using excessive force when he fired 10 shots at her apartment should serve one day in jail, Justice Department officials said in court filings.
Why it matters: The recommendation signals the dramatic shift the Trump administration is making from the Biden administration on police misconduct cases that helped spark the now-defunct racial reckoning.
Driving the news: DOJ attorneys said in filings on Wednesday that although Brett Hankison "was part of the team executing the warrant," he "did not shoot Ms. Taylor and is not otherwise responsible for her death."
- Prosecutors wrote that they were unaware of another case "in which a police officer has been charged with depriving the rights of another person under the Fourth Amendment for returning fire and not injuring anyone."
- They are asking a federal judge to sentence Hankison to one day behind bars, meaning a sentence of time served and not returning to jail.
- Hankison faces a maximum of life in prison.
What they're saying: "The fact that Donald Trump's DOJ thinks Breonna Taylor's life is worth just a one-day jail sentence is morally reprehensible and deeply insulting. This is a dark day for our entire city," Rep. Morgan McGarvey (D-Ky.) said in a statement emailed to Axios.
Context: Hankison, who is white, became the first Louisville police officer convicted last year in the deadly raid that was a flash point in the Black Lives Matter movement.
- Along with the murder of George Floyd, the police encounter that killed Taylor, a Black woman, generated racial injustice protests nationwide in 2020.
Caveat: None of the shots Hankison fired in 2020 hit Taylor, a 26-year-old emergency room technician.
- In 2023, a federal judge declared a mistrial in the first federal case involving Hankison, whose lawyers argued that he was acting properly "in a very tense, very chaotic environment."
Flashback: The U.S. Justice Department under the Biden administration said Hankison and other Louisville police officers broke into Taylor's home with a falsified "no-knock" search warrant as part of a drug investigation.
- Former Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron said the police did knock and announce their presence, though neighbors and Taylor's boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, said they heard no announcement or knock.
- Walker, who believed that intruders were entering the home, fired one shot from a handgun, striking one officer. The police responded by opening fire and striking Taylor multiple times.
- Taylor was alive for at least 20 minutes after police shot her, but she did not receive any medical attention, according to Walker and police dispatch logs.
Federal prosecutors previously accused Hankison of violating Taylor's civil rights by firing his weapon into her apartment through a covered window and covered glass door and using excessive force.
- Hankison faced the federal charges after he was acquitted in 2022 by a state jury of three felony wanton endangerment charges stemming from the raid.
Between the lines: Not only is the Trump administration no longer seeking harsh penalties for officers already convicted of excessive force, it's no longer pursuing federal consent decrees that hold police departments accountable.
- Federal probes into nearly a dozen city police departments by President Biden's Justice Department are unlikely to reach reform agreements.
- Those investigations came in response to allegations of systemic, unconstitutional misconduct by police departments, such as using excessive force and conducting illegal traffic stops.
Editor's note: This story has been updated to include a quote from Rep. McGarvey and to correct the year of Hankison's acquittal on state charges to 2022 (not last year) and his conviction on federal charges to last year (not Friday).
