Former Louisville police officer Brett Hankison was sentenced to 33 months in prison for using excessive force in violating the civil rights of Breonna Taylor, the 26-year-old Black woman who died in a botched police raid of her apartment in March 2020.
U.S. District Court Judge Rebecca Grady Jennings handed down Hankison’s sentence on Monday afternoon. In an unusual move, federal prosecutors recommended that Hankison receive a one-day sentence of time served and three years of probation, far below the sentencing guidelines for the charge.
Jennings, nominated to the bench by President Donald Trump in 2017, also turned down a last-minute motion from Hankison’s attorneys for him to receive a new trial.
A jury convicted Hankison on the charge in November 2024, marking the first time an officer at the scene of the raid on Taylor’s apartment has been held criminally responsible for it. The fatal shootings of Taylor and other Black Americans fueled nationwide protests of police violence and racial injustice throughout 2020.
Taylor was killed on March 13, 2020, when seven plainclothes Louisville Metro Police Department (LMPD) officers arrived at her apartment to serve a search warrant in a narcotics investigation centered on her ex-boyfriend. Whether or not officers announced themselves as law enforcement is disputed. Taylor’s boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, believing an intruder was breaking in, fired a warning shot from a legally-owned handgun that hit Sgt. Jonathan Mattingly in the leg. Officers returned fire, fatally shooting Taylor.
Hankison was one of three officers who fired bullets that night. Hankison did not shoot Taylor but fired 10 shots into a window and a sliding glass door that were covered in blinds. Three bullets went into an adjoining apartment where a pregnant woman lived with her partner and 5-year-old child.
Hankison was previously found not guilty on state charges of wantonly endangering Taylor’s neighbors in early 2022. His first federal trial ended in a mistrial in November 2023 after the jury failed to reach a verdict on any charges. In his second trial, he was found not guilty of violating the civil rights of Taylor’s neighbors.
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The DOJ’s sentencing request for Hankison cited his past legal trials and the fact he would never serve as a police officer or own a firearm again as a reason for a lesser sentence.
“Although he was part of the team executing the warrant, Defendant Hankison did not shoot Ms. Taylor and is not otherwise responsible for her death,” the DOJ memo read. “Defendant Hankison did not wound her or anyone else at the scene that day, although he did discharge his duty weapon ten times blindly into Ms. Taylor’s home.”
The request drew condemnation from civil rights groups and Taylor’s family. In a statement last week, lawyers for Tamika Palmer, Taylor’s mother, called the DOJ’s recommendation “an insult” and “a blatant betrayal of the jury’s decision.”
“The family asked for one thing: that Brett Hankison be sentenced in accordance with the law and federal guidelines. Instead, Tamika Palmer is left, once again, heartbroken and angry,” attorneys for Palmer said in the statement.
Hankison was one of four former Louisville Metro Police Department personnel charged by the Department of Justice in connection with Taylor’s death. Neither of the officers who fatally shot Taylor were charged with a crime at the state or federal level.
One former LMPD detective pleaded guilty to federal charges of falsifying information on the affidavit to secure the search warrant for Taylor’s apartment and conspiring to cover it up after the fact. Two other former officers were initially charged with making false statements and conspiracy surrounding the affidavit. In 2024, a federal judge dismissed the felony charges against the former officers, Joshua Jaynes and Sgt. Kyle Meany. Jaynes still faces counts of falsifying records and witness tampering, and Meany faces a charge of making a false statement to federal officers.
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