Crime & Safety
Ex-Cop Found Not Guilty On All Charges In Breonna Taylor Raid
Brett Hankison, a former Louisville police officer, was found not guilty on endangerment charges stemming from the raid that killed Taylor.
LOUISVILLE, KY — A former Kentucky police officer involved in the raid that killed Breonna Taylor was found not guilty on endangerment charges, according to the Associated Press.
Brett Hankison, a former detective for the Louisville Metro Police Department, was not charged with killing Taylor but had been charged with three counts of wanton endangerment and was accused of firing into the apartment of Taylor's neighbor during a botched drug raid in March 2020.
None of the officers involved in the raid were charged with any crime related to the death of Taylor, a 26-year-old Black woman. Hankison did not fire any of the bullets that killed Taylor.
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On Thursday, the jury made up of eight men and four women returned the verdict after three hours of deliberation. Hankison's acquittal likely ends the possibility of other state criminal charges related to the raid being filed against the officers involved.
Stewart Mathews, Hankison's attorney, told the Associated Press they were "thrilled" by the outcome and expressed Hankison was "doing his job as a police officer" during the raid.
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In closing arguments Thursday, Mathews told the jury Hankison didn't know there was an apartment behind the one he fired into during the raid in an attempt to save his fellow officers from what he thought was a dangerous situation, going so far as to compare him to a 9/11 hero, according to Yahoo News.
The deaths of Taylor, George Floyd and Ahmaud Arbery sparked protests advocating for racial justice across the country in the summer of 2020. Floyd was killed during a high-profile arrest in Minnesota after Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin kneeled on his neck for several minutes. Arbery was killed by three white men who said they were attempting to make a citizen's arrest while he was running through a Georgia neighborhood.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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