LOUISVILLE, Ky. — A federal jury on Friday convicted a former Kentucky police detective of utilizing extreme power on Breonna Taylor throughout a botched 2020 drug raid that left her useless.
The 12-member jury returned the late night time verdict after clearing Brett Hankison earlier within the night on a cost that he used extreme power on Taylor’s neighbors.
Some members of the jury had been in tears as the decision was learn round 9:30 p.m. Friday.
Hankison fired 10 photographs into Taylor’s glass door and home windows in the course of the raid, however didn’t hit anybody. Some photographs flew right into a next-door neighbor’s adjoining condominium.
The dying of the 26-year-old Black girl, together with the Could 2020 police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, sparked racial injustice protests nationwide.
It’s the primary conviction of a Louisville police officer who was concerned within the lethal raid.
A separate jury deadlocked on federal costs in opposition to Hankison final yr, whereas in 2022, a jury acquitted Hankison on state costs of wanton endangerment.
The conviction in opposition to Hankison carries a most sentence of life in jail.
Hankison, 48, argued all through the trial that he was performing to guard his fellow officers after Taylor’s boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, fired on them after they broke down Taylor’s door with a battering ram. Walker shot and wounded one of many officers.
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