Ex-Cop in Breonna Taylor Case Found Not Guilty

The only Kentucky officer criminally charged in the bungled raid on Breonna Taylor’s home was found not guilty Thursday almost two years after she was shot dead.

Ex-Louisville cop Brett Hankison had been accused of endangering Taylor’s neighbors on March 13, 2020, when he fired his gun during the raid. None of his shots hit Taylor or her neighbors, and the two other officers involved in the raid were never charged with crimes. Louisville police fired Hankison, a 20-year veteran K-9 officer, for the reckless shooting in June 2020.

Last week, the jurors visited Taylor’s home to help inform their decision.

The jury, whose racial composition was not released by the court, found him not guilty on all three counts of wanton endangerment after it deliberated for around three hours.

Taylor, a 26-year-old Black woman, was in bed when police entered her home with a no-knock warrant on March 13, 2020. Her boyfriend fired at the officers, believing an intruder was entering the apartment. Police returned fire and killed Taylor. While Hankison did not fire the fatal shot, Cody Etherton, Taylor’s neighbor and a witness at the trial, said the ex-cop’s bullets almost killed him.

Hankison’s attorney Stewart Mathews maintained throughout the trial that his client responded “as he was taught to do” when he fired 10 shots near the door and window, some of which entered Etherton’s unit.

He “was attempting to defend and save the lives of his fellow officers who he thought were still caught in that fatal funnel inside that doorway,” Mathews said in his opening statement, referencing the shots fired by Taylor’s then-boyfriend.

Following the verdict, Mathews said he and his client were “thrilled.”

“The jury felt like you go out and perform your duty and your brother officer gets shot, you got a right to defend yourself. Simple as that,” his lawyer told reporters.

Taylor’s mother, Tamika Palmer, was in the court when the verdict was released and left without commenting on the jury’s decision. Her family settled with the city of Louisville for $12 million in 2020.

With Post wires

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