A former Kentucky police officer has been sentenced to 33 months in prison after being convicted in connection with the botched raid that led to the killing of Breonna Taylor, 26.
This sentence, handed down on July 21, contradicted a last-minute request from federal prosecutors, who had asked for a one-day sentence for Brett Hankison. During Monday’s hearing, U.S. District Judge Rebecca Grady Jennings stated that the Bureau of Prisons will decide the actual start date of his incarceration. Hankison will also serve three years of supervised probation after his release.
Hankison remains the only officer to have been charged and convicted directly related to the raid. Meanwhile, another former officer, Kelly Goodlett, who pleaded guilty to conspiring to falsify the warrant affidavit used to search Taylor’s home and to cover up misconduct, will be sentenced next year.
Taylor was killed on March 13, 2020, when police officers from Louisville Metro’s plainclothes unit executed a search warrant at her apartment in connection with a narcotics investigation targeting her ex-boyfriend. Whether the officers announced themselves as police remains contested. Taylor’s boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, believing an intruder was breaking in, fired a warning shot that struck Sgt. Jonathan Mattingly. Officers returned fire, fatally shooting Taylor.
Hankison fired ten shots into her apartment, claiming during the trial that he did so to protect his fellow officers. None of his bullets struck anyone, but they entered a neighboring residence where a pregnant woman, a five-year-old, and a man were sleeping.
Prosecutors argued that Hankison acted recklessly, violating a key rule of the use of deadly force: If he couldn’t see the person he was shooting at, he shouldn’t have pulled the trigger.
In a statement last week, Taylor’s lawyers called Hankison’s sentence recommendation an “insult” that sets a “dangerous precedent” in how civil rights or Black people are maintained.
“It is unfathomable that, after finally securing a conviction, the Department of Justice would seek a sentence so drastically below the federal guidelines,” the statement added.
The legal team said recommending a single day in prison “sends the unmistakable message that white officers can violate the civil rights of Black Americans with near-total impunity.”
