Jury convicts Kentucky ex-officer of violating Breonna Taylor's civil rights, ABC reports
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KENTUCKY - A Kentucky former police officer was convicted on Nov 1 of violating the civil rights of Ms Breonna Taylor, a Black woman whose 2020 shooting death by officers
The jury hours earlier acquitted former Louisville police officer Brett Hankison on a charge of violating the civil rights of Ms Taylor’s neighbours, ABC said.
Hankison faces life in prison on the conviction.
After-hours calls to the US District Court of the Western District of Kentucky, to the federal prosecutors overseeing the case and to Hankison’s lawyer were not immediately returned.
The killing of Ms Taylor, along with other 2020 killings - including George Floyd in Minneapolis and Ahmaud Arbery in Georgia - sparked outrage and galvanised protests across the US
Hankison’s first civil rights trial ended in a mistrial almost a year ago.
He is on trial for civil rights violations for allegedly using excessive force.
Hankison, who is white and who prosecutors said fired 10 bullets that did not strike anyone during the botched raid on Ms Taylor’s apartment, was acquitted by a state court in 2022 in a separate trial, in which he was accused of putting Ms Taylor’s neighbours in danger by firing his weapon.
Of the three officers who fired their weapons, only Hankison faced criminal charges. Kentucky’s Attorney General Daniel Cameron did not recommend charges for them, and the grand jury did not indict them.
Ms Taylor, a 26-year-old emergency medical technician, was asleep with her boyfriend on March 13, 2020, when police conducted a no-knock raid and burst into her apartment.
Police wanted to search the home in connection with a drug investigation in which Ms Taylor’s ex-boyfriend, who did not live with Ms Taylor at that time, was a suspect.
After police broke down Ms Taylor’s door, her new boyfriend, fearing a break-in and saying he did not hear police identify themselves, fired one shot from a handgun that wounded an officer. That officer and another returned fire. Six shots struck Ms Taylor, killing her. REUTERS
