By Daniel Trotta
(Reuters) – A Kentucky jury on Thursday acquitted a white former detective of endangering neighbors of Breonna Taylor during a botched nighttime raid that killed the Black woman in her home, clearing law enforcement of all criminal liability in a case that rocked the United States in 2020.
Detective Brett Hankison, 45, whose stray bullets hit a neighboring apartment in the city of Louisville during the execution of a “no knock” search warrant, was the only officer charged in the case.
Hankison, who was charged with wanton endangerment, could be heard sobbing behind his face mask as the verdict was read three times, one for each of the occupants of the neighboring apartment, according a Court TV reporter who was in the courtroom.
Relatives of Taylor who were in the gallery also wept, the reporter said.
The Jefferson County Circuit Court jury deliberated for about three hours after hearing closing arguments on Thursday at the conclusion of a one-week trial.
The death of Taylor, a 26-year-old emergency medical technician who was unarmed at the time of her death, was one in a trio of cases that fueled a summer of protests against racial injustice and police violence two years ago, when the country was reeling from the still-new coronavirus pandemic.
The other cases resulted in guilty verdicts for the murders of two Black men in 2020: George Floyd in Minneapolis and Ahmaud Arbery in Brunswick, Georgia.
Those convictions had offered a measure of justice after Black activists and victims have said their protests against racial violence were largely ignored before the advent of cellphone video.
Taylor’s death on March 13, 2020, at first drew little national attention but was thrust into prominence after a Minneapolis police officer killed Floyd by pinning a knee to his neck on May 25, 2020. A passerby’s video of Floyd’s death was seen around the world.
Around then, video surfaced showing the February 2020 shooting death of Arbery, who was chased by three white men in Brunswick, Georgia, and shot dead.
Derek Chauvin, the Minneapolis officer accused of murdering Floyd, was convicted in a state trial last year and sentenced to more than 22 years in prison, and three other officers at the scene were convicted of federal civil rights violations last month. Chauvin pleaded guilty to civil rights charges.
The three civilians charged in Arbery’s death were convicted of murder in a state trial last year and of federal hate crimes last month.
In Taylor’s death, a grand jury cleared the two white officers who shot her but charged Hankison for endangering neighbors in the adjacent apartment. A grand juror on the case later said Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron only presented the wanton endangerment charges against Hankison to the grand jury.
Taylor’s family in 2020 won a $12 million wrongful death settlement from the city of Louisville.
Hankison took the witness stand in his own defense on Wednesday, choking up several times and wiping a tear.
After police broke in, Taylor’s boyfriend fired one shot from and handgun that wounded an officer in the leg. That officer and another returned fire, shooting 22 times.
Hankison testified that he mistakenly believed his fellow officers were coming under heavy fire from a rifle, so he returned fire from outside the apartment, shooting 10 times through a sliding glass door.
“It appeared to me they were being executed with this rifle,” Hankison said. No rifle was found.
Hankison’s attorney, Stew Mathews, said the case came down to why Hankison opened fire, and that he believed he was protecting his colleagues.
Police wanted to search the home in connection with a drug investigation in which Taylor’s ex-boyfriend was a suspect.
(Reporting by Daniel Trotta; Editing by Donna Bryson, Michael Perry and Cynthia Osterman)
