“Former Louisville, Kentucky, police officer Brett Hankison was found not guilty on all counts Thursday after he was accused of endangering a couple and their 5-year-old son the night police raided Breonna Taylor’s apartment,” NBC News reported on Thursday, March 3, 2022 (story here).
Hankison, who was fired for his role in the botched raid that left Taylor, an innocent black woman, dead in her apartment, fired shots through a wall into the adjoining apartment occupied by the couple and their child. They’re suing the city and police. Taylor’s family received a $12 million settlement.
The cops who killed Taylor were never charged.
Hankison claimed he saw muzzle flashes from a rifle. There was no rifle. According to Wikipedia (here), he fired 10 of the 32 bullets cops sprayed into Taylor’s apartment, hitting “objects in the living room, dining room, kitchen, hallway, bathroom, and both bedrooms,” 5 or 6 of which hit Taylor (all fired by a different cop). One of the three cops was hit and injured, probably by a shot fired by Taylor’s boyfriend. He faced no charges, and he’s also suing the city and police.
Hankison said he felt “shook” when he later learned “a small child” was in the apartment his bullets flew into. He should’ve thought about that before shooting blindly and recklessly; he didn’t, which is why prosecutors charged him with wanton endangerment.
Criminal and civil liability are two different things. The facts of this case are complicated, and many of the facts fall into a gray area. At least part of the fault in this case lies with police policies, as much as the individual officers involved. This was a drug raid, and those are always highly dangerous for the police officers involved.
The only jury to decide whether the cops acted criminally in this case has spoken. No one will go to jail for this. Had Hankison been convicted, his fault would lie in endangering the couple and their child next door, which he clearly did, and that shouldn’t be accepted as inevitable or a part of routine police work. Hankison and the other two officers lost their jobs; they’re out of police work, hopefully for good.
More importantly, the deficiencies in police policies, procedures, and training that lead to tragedies like this must change, so it doesn’t happen again.