Tensions are starting to flare after President Donald Trump’s Justice Department recommended just one day in prison for a Louisville police officer involved in the botched raid that killed Breonna Taylor.
The officer, Brett Hankison, was convicted last year of violating Taylor’s civil rights when he fired his gun blindly into her apartment during a no-knock police raid in March of 2020.
Police were searching for the 26-year-old’s ex-boyfriend, who was not there, but her partner at the time, Kenneth Walker III, was. He thought unknown assailants were breaking in and opened fire as three officers breached the door, wounding one in the thigh. Those officers returned the gunshot. Taylor was killed in the assault.
Hankison, who fired 10 rounds, was accused of firing wildly through a patio door and a window, according to CNN. Prosecutors said Hankison’s bullets struck a neighbor’s apartment where a child, a pregnant woman and a man were home. None of the rounds hit Taylor or anyone else.
The DOJ, seemingly critical of Hankison’s prosecution under the Biden administration, requested in a memo sent to prosecutors that Hankison serve just one day in prison.
A pre-sentence report prepared by the United States Probation Office recommended a prison term between 11 and 14 years, USA Today reported, citing court documents.
The Justice Department sentencing memo said that the range was incorrectly calculated and “excessive,” recommending that the court “grant a significant downward departure” of one day in prison, which is essentially time served because of the day Hankison was booked and made his first court appearance.
In a court filing Wednesday, Justice Department officials said they were “unaware of another prosecution 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.”
“The government respects the jury’s verdict, which will almost certainly ensure that Hankison never serves as a law enforcement officer again and will also likely ensure that he never legally possesses a firearm again,” the filing stated. “But adding on top of those consequences a sentence within the lengthy guidelines range — even when properly calculated — would, in the government’s view, simply be unjust under these circumstances.”
The memo went on to say that Biden’s DOJ should not have even prosecuted Hankison on civil rights violations at all.
It noted that Hankison was acquitted in a state trial and that it took two federal trials to convict him on one count of violating Taylor’s civil rights. The first federal case ended in a mistrial.
“In this case, two federal trials were ultimately necessary to obtain a unanimous verdict of guilt,” prosecutors wrote. “But even then, the jury convicted on only one count, despite the fact that the elements of the charge and underlying conduct are essentially the same.”
Prosecutors continued, adding that “the jury’s verdict will almost certainly ensure that Defendant Hankison never serves as a law enforcement officer again and will also likely ensure that he never legally possesses a firearm again.”
“This is OUTRAGEOUS S%$T. And some people still say this Trump Administration is not racist…Think again. Racism in plain sight. DOJ seeks one-day sentence for officer in raid that killed Breonna Taylor,” Tom Hodson posted on social media.
“Talk about a HUGE slap in the face to her poor family!,” Gloria DeGeorge wrote on X.
“Why this matters: Hankison’s actions were reckless and dangerous: – He fired without a clear target into an occupied building. – His bullets put innocent neighbors at serious risk. That’s the heart of the civil rights case: he violated their right to be free from excessive force by law enforcement,” kyblueblood wrote in a post on X.
Taylor’s killing at the hands of police was one of several cases that sparked nationwide outrage and led to massive protests in cities across the country in 2020.
Hankison, who was fired from the Louisville Police Department in June 2020, is scheduled for sentencing on July 21, 2025, and faces a maximum sentence of life in prison.
Great Job Shelby E. & the Team @ Atlanta Black Star Source link for sharing this story.
