{"id":70345,"date":"2025-07-17T16:35:16","date_gmt":"2025-07-17T16:35:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/70345\/"},"modified":"2025-07-17T16:35:16","modified_gmt":"2025-07-17T16:35:16","slug":"justice-department-says-former-officer-convicted-in-breonna-taylor-raid-should-get-one-day-in-jail","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/70345\/","title":{"rendered":"Justice Department says former officer convicted in Breonna Taylor raid should get one day in jail"},"content":{"rendered":"

CNN
\n \u00a0\u2014\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n The Justice Department is asking that a former police officer found guilty of violating the civil rights of Breonna Taylor in 2020 \u2013 when she was shot and killed by police in her Louisville home \u2013 be sentenced to one day in jail<\/a>.\n <\/p>\n

\n The officer, Brett Hankison of Kentucky, was convicted on one count<\/a> of abusing Taylor\u2019s civil rights last year after firing several shots through Taylor\u2019s bedroom window during a police raid. He is set to be sentenced on Monday.\n <\/p>\n

\n Taylor\u2019s killing became a pillar in the Black Lives Matter movement, and one of several cases that sparked nationwide protests against police violence in 2020. If granted, a shortened sentence could reinflame tensions with activists who believe that government institutions protect officers from facing consequences.\n <\/p>\n

\n But in a court filing Wednesday, the Justice Department argued that although Hankison \u201cwas part of the team executing the warrant, Defendant Hankison did not shoot Ms. Taylor and is not otherwise responsible for her death.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cCounsel is unaware of another prosecution in which a police officer has been charged with depriving the rights of another person under the Fourth Amendment for returning fire and not injuring anyone,\u201d prosecutors wrote in their filing.\n <\/p>\n

\n The request for Hankison to serve one day behind bars would mean a sentence of time-served, meaning that he would not return to jail. They are also asking Judge Rebecca Grady Jennings to sentence him to three years of supervised release.\n <\/p>\n

\"Breonna<\/p>\n

\n The filing was signed not by lawyers involved in the case or the career staff who usually handle sentencing requests, but by Trump\u2019s appointee to run the Civil Rights Department Harmeet Dhillon and a senior non-career official in her division.\n <\/p>\n

\n Taylor was shot during a botched \u201cno-knock\u201d raid<\/a> in 2020 when officers were searching for Taylor\u2019s ex-boyfriend who was not in the home. Taylor\u2019s boyfriend at the time, Kenneth Walker III, later said he thought they were intruders and opened fire at police officers.\n <\/p>\n

\n Officers returned fire, including Hankison, who was accused of blindly firing through a patio door and a window. The bullets pierced into a neighboring apartment where a pregnant woman, a man and a child were home, according to prosecutors.\n <\/p>\n

\n Hankison was fired from the police department in late June 2020.\n <\/p>\n

\n In an apparent criticism of the Biden-era Justice Department\u2019s handling of the case under, Trump\u2019s DOJ noted in their Wednesday filing that the Hankison was acquitted in a state trial and that the first federal trial ended in a mistrial.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cIn this case, two federal trials were ultimately necessary to obtain a unanimous verdict of guilt,\u201d prosecutors wrote. \u201cBut even then, the jury convicted on only one count, despite the fact that the elements of the charge and underlying conduct are essentially the same.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Prosecutors continued, adding that \u201cthe jury\u2019s verdict will almost certainly ensure that Defendant Hankison never serves as a law enforcement officer again and will also likely ensure that he never legally possesses a firearm again.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n For his part, Hankison also argued for leniency.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cMr. Hankison is suspectable to abuse based on his status as a police officer, coupled with the extensive national and international media attention this case has generated over the past five plus years,\u201d his attorneys wrote.\n <\/p>\n

\n CNN\u2019s Hannah Rabinowitz contributed to this report.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CNN \u00a0\u2014\u00a0 The Justice Department is asking that a former police officer found guilty of violating the civil…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":70346,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[51,50,52],"class_list":{"0":"post-70345","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-stories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70345","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=70345"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70345\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/70346"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70345"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70345"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70345"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}