A federal judge on Monday sentenced a former Kentucky police officer to nearly three years in prison for using excessive force during the deadly 2020 Breonna Taylor raid, rebuffing a U.S. Department of Justice recommendation of no prison time for the defendant.
Brett Hankison, who fired 10 shots during the raid but didn’t hit anyone, was the only officer on the scene charged in the Black woman’s death. He is the first person sentenced to prison in the case that rocked the city of Louisville and spawned weeks of street protests over police brutality that year.
U.S. District Judge Rebecca Grady Jennings, in sentencing Hankison, said no prison time “is not appropriate” and would minimize the jury’s verdict from November. Jennings said she was “startled” there weren’t more people injured in the raid from Hankison’s blind shots.
She sentenced Hankison, 49, to 33 months in prison for the conviction of use of excessive force with three years of supervised probation to follow the prison term. He will not report directly to prison. The U.S. Bureau of Prisons will determine where and when he starts his sentence, Jennings said.
The judge, who presided over two of Hankison’s trials, expressed disappointment with a sentencing recommendation by federal prosecutors last week, saying the Justice Department was treating Hankison’s actions as “an inconsequential crime” and said some of its arguments were “incongruous and inappropriate.”
Civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who helped Taylor’s family secure a $12 million wrongful death settlement against the city of Louisville, had called the department’s recommendation “an insult to the life of Breonna Taylor and a blatant betrayal of the jury’s decision.”
Crump was at Monday’s hearing and said he had hoped for a longer sentence but was “grateful that (Hankison) is at least going to prison and has to think for those 3 years about Breonna Taylor and that her life mattered.”
Afterward, before a crowd outside the courthouse, Crump sounded a familiar chant: “Say Her name.” The crowd yelled back: “Breonna Taylor!” And he and other members of Taylor family’s legal team issued a subsequent statement criticizing the Justice Department.
“While today’s sentence is not what we had hoped for –– nor does it fully reflect the severity of the harm caused –– it is more than what the Department of Justice sought. That, in itself, is a statement,” the statement said.
Hankison’s 10 shots the night of the March 2020 botched drug raid flew through the walls of Taylor’s apartment into a neighboring apartment, narrowly missing a neighboring family.
The 26-year-old’s death, along with the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, sparked racial injustice and police brutality protests nationwide that year.
But the Justice Department, under new leadership since President Donald Trump took office in January, sought no prison time for Hankison, in an abrupt about-face by federal prosecutors after the department spent years prosecuting the former detective. They suggested time already served, which amounted to one day, and three years of supervised probation.
Taylor’s mother, Tamika Palmer, said she was disappointed that the new federal prosecutors assigned to the case were not pushing for a tougher sentence. On many occasions inside the courtroom Monday, lead federal prosecutor Rob Keenan agreed with Hankison’s defense attorneys on factors that would decrease Hankison’s punishment.
“There was no prosecution in there for us,” Palmer said afterward. “Brett had his own defense team, I didn’t know he got a second one.”
Taylor was shot in her hallway by two officers after her boyfriend fired from inside the apartment, striking an officer in the leg. Neither of the other officers was charged in state or federal court after prosecutors deemed they were justified in returning fire into the apartment. Louisville police used a drug warrant to enter Taylor’s apartment, but found no drugs or cash inside.
A separate jury deadlocked on federal charges against Hankison in 2023, and he was acquitted on state charges of wanton endangerment in 2022.
In their recent sentencing memo, federal prosecutors wrote that though Hankison’s “response in these fraught circumstances was unreasonable given the benefit of hindsight, that unreasonable response did not kill or wound Breonna Taylor, her boyfriend, her neighbors, defendant’s fellow officers, or anyone else.”
Jennings acknowledged Monday that officers were provoked by Taylor’s boyfriend’s gunshot, but said “that does not allow officers to then do what they want and then be excused.”
While the hearing was going on, Louisville police arrested four people in front of the courthouse who it said were “creating confrontation, kicking vehicles, or otherwise creating an unsafe environment.” Authorities didn’t list charges against them.
Federal prosecutors had argued that multiple factors — including that Hankison’s two other trials ended with no convictions — should greatly reduce the potential punishment. They also argued he would be susceptible to abuse in prison and suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder.
The sentencing memorandum was submitted by Harmeet Dhillon, chief of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division and a Trump political appointee who in May moved to cancel settlements with Louisville and Minneapolis that had called for overhauling their police departments.
In the Taylor case, three other ex-Louisville police officers have been charged with crafting a falsified warrant, but have not gone to trial. None were at the scene when Taylor was shot. The warrant used to enter her apartment was one of five issued that night in search of evidence on an alleged drug dealer that Taylor once had an association with.
