Officer who shot blindly into Breonna Taylor’s home has been convicted

Louisville, Kentucky, police did a lot of questionable things before, during, and after the March 2020 drug raid. killed Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old EMT and aspiring nurse. Their mistakes include a misleading, legally flawed one search warrant affidavit; a reckless in the middle of the night home invasion that led to a deadly confrontation; and a conspiracy to cover up the misrepresentations that preceded the raid. But the most baffling aspect of the incident was Detective Brett Hankison’s decision to do so shoot blindly 10 shots from outside Taylor’s apartment, through a bedroom window and a sliding glass door covered with blinds and curtains.

On Friday, after more than twenty hours of deliberation over three days, a federal jury convened in Louisville convicted Hankison of willfully violating Taylor’s Fourth Amendment rights, under color of law, by shooting five bullets through the bedroom window. Although none of the bullets struck Taylor, federal prosecutors argued that Hankison endangered her life by unlawfully using deadly force.

Because the attack “It involved the use of a dangerous weapon and attempted murder,” Hankison is confronted with maximum punishment of life in prison. The jury acquitted him of a second charge under the same statute, which alleged he violated the constitutional rights of Taylor’s neighbors, who were endangered by bullets entering their apartment.

Hankison, who was that? dismissed from his job with the Louisville Metro Police Department in June 2020, he is the only officer directly involved in the raid to have been convicted of a crime. A state jury will be held in March 2022 acquitted him for wanton endangerment, a charge based on the same use of force. Hankison was indicted on federal civil rights charges five months later. Last year, his first prosecution on these charges ended with a mistrial after jurors failed to reach a verdict.

During his second federal trial, Hankison again testified that he was trying to help two fellow officers at Taylor’s apartment, Sgt. Jonathan Mattingly and Detective Myles Cosgrove thought they were under constant fire. Here’s what actually happened, as described by a Justice Department report press release on Hankison’s conviction:

While executing the warrant at Taylor’s home, officers knocked on Taylor’s door and reported as police at approximately 12:45 a.m. No one answered the door and the officers saw no indication that anyone in the house was awake or had heard their announcement. . Police then rammed the door open and Taylor’s friend, believing intruders were breaking in, fired his gun once at officers, two of whom returned fire, striking and killing Taylor.

Taylor’s boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, has consistently said he heard no announcement and had no idea the intruders who broke into the apartment were police officers. He was initially charged with attempted murder of a police officer, but prosecutors decreased that indictment two months later, implicitly conceding that Walker had a strong claim of self-defense. The bullet he fired hit Mattingly in the leg. In response, Mattingly and Cosgrove fired a total of 22 bullets into a dark hallway, where Taylor, who was unarmed, stood next to Walker.

Hankison, who could not see what was happening because he had moved from the doorway to the side of the apartment, testified that he mistook the hail of bullets from his colleagues for gunfire from a semi-automatic rifle. “I saw those windows and doors light up,” he said said. “It looked like there was a flashlight in it… In my mind, an AR-15 is being shot at, and it sounds like it’s getting closer and louder.” He added that it “sounded like a semi-automatic rifle smashing its way down the hall and executing everyone.”

Yet Hankison’s reaction is difficult to fathom because he had no way of knowing who would be hit by his bullets. The Associated Press notes that “several witnesses, including the Louisville police chief,” testified that Hankison “violated Louisville police policy that requires officers to identify a target before shooting.”

Defense attorney Don Malarcik nevertheless maintained that Hankison had done nothing wrong. “He did exactly what he had to do,” Malarcik said told the jurors during his closing arguments. “He acted to save lives.”

That’s not the case, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Songer. Hankison “violated one of the most fundamental rules of deadly force,” Songer told the jury. “If they can’t see the person they’re shooting at, they can’t pull the trigger.”

According to Yvette Gentry, former interim Louisville Police Chief Cosgrove — who fired 16 shots into the apartment, including the one that killed Taylor — did something similar. Gentry canned Cosgrove said in December 2020 that he fired “in three distinctly different directions,” indicating that he “did not identify a target” and instead “fired in a manner consistent with suppressive fire, which is in direct contradiction to our training, values ​​and standards. policy.”

Like Hankison, Cosgrove said he mistook the police gunfire (from Mattingly) for incoming rounds. He told investigators, he was “overwhelmed by bright flashes and darkness,” leading him to believe that “gunshots are still happening because of those bright lights.” Cosgrove, who later found work as a sheriff’s deputy in Carroll County, Kentucky, suggested he fired his gun without thinking. “I just felt like I shot,” he said. “It’s something surreal. If you told me I wasn’t doing something at that moment, I’d believe you. If you told me I was doing something, I’d probably believe you too.”

Yet an investigation by Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron shows concluded that both Cosgrove and Mattingly had shot in self-defense, meaning criminal charges were not warranted. The fact that Walker Also appears to have shot in self-defense underlines the recklessness of the ‘dynamic access’ tactics that the police reflexively used in this case.

Taylor’s death inspired extensively local protests and became a leading exhibition for the Black Lives Matter movement, along with the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis two months later. In September 2020, the city of Louisville agreed to one $12 million settlement of a lawsuit filed by Taylor’s family. But aside from Hankison’s failed prosecution, the raid resulted in no state charges.

The Ministry of Justice, on the other hand, has obtained this charges against Hankison and three other current or former Louisville officers involved in the raid: former Detective Joshua Jaynes, who filed the search warrant affidavit; Sergeant Kyle Meany, who signed it; and Detective Kelly Goodlett, who allegedly “conspired with Jaynes to forge the search warrant for Taylor’s home and then cover up their actions.”

Jaynes’ declarationwhich linked Taylor to an ex-boyfriend’s drug trafficking operation based on little more than guilt by association, “contained false and misleading statements, omitted material facts, relied on outdated information and was not supported by probable cause,” according to the Ministry of Justice. say. Jaynes, like Hankison, is accused of willfully violating Taylor’s Fourth Amendment rights. The former detective who was dismissed in december 2020 for lying in his affidavit, is also accused of falsifying files in a federal investigation and with conspiracy for “agreeing with another detective to cover up the false warrant statement after Taylor’s death by preparing a false investigative letter and making false statements to detectives.”

Meany faces the same civil rights charge. He is also accused of it making a false statement to federal investigators by claiming that police applied for a search warrant for Taylor’s apartment because the police SWAT unit requested it.

Goodlett, the detective who allegedly conspired with Jaynes, pleaded guilty in August 2022, a few weeks after her indictment. Jaynes and Meany have not yet been tried. Last August, a federal judge arrived rejected enhanced civil rights charges against them, rejecting claims that their alleged misconduct “involved the use of a dangerous weapon” or “resulted in Taylor’s death.” Jaynes and Meany were charged again in light of that ruling last month.

“Brett Hankison was found guilty by a jury of his peers of willfully depriving Breonna Taylor of her constitutional rights,” said Attorney General Merrick B. Garland. said on Friday. “His use of deadly force was unlawful and endangered Ms. Taylor.” While “this verdict is an important step toward accountability for the violation of Breonna Taylor’s civil rights,” Garland added, “justice for the loss of Ms. Taylor is a task beyond human capacity.”