Breonna Taylor
One of the officers involved in the fatal March 13 shooting of 26-year-old Kentucky woman Breonna Taylor is getting fired.
Detective Brett Hankison faces termination from the police force because he “displayed an extreme indifference to the value of human life when you wantonly and blindly fired ten (10) rounds into the apartment of Breonna Taylor on March 13, 2020,” wrote Interim Police Chief Robert J. Schroeder in a letter addressed to Hankison. “These rounds created a substantial danger of death and serious injury to Breonna Taylor and the three occupants of the apartment next to Ms. Taylor’s.”
This violated “Standard Operating Procedure 5.1.2 Obedience to Rules and Regulations.” Hankinson was also accused of breaking the procedure on the use of deadly force: He opened fire without “supporting facts that your deadly force was directed at a person against whom posed an immediate threat of danger or serious injury to yourself [or] others,” Schroeder wrote, saying that the detective fired the 10 rounds into a patio door and window “covered with material that completely prevented you from verifying any person as an immediate threat or more importantly any innocent persons present.”
Schroeder said that Hankison was never trained by the Louisville Metro Police Department to use deadly force the way he did.
Taylor was killed by cops on March 13, and her boyfriend Kenneth Walker was arrested. Her family and their attorney said this was a botched police raid, and Walker’s attorney said his client only opened fire at authorities after they forced their way into the residence and didn’t announce their presence.
Attempted murder charges against the boyfriend were dropped.
“I don’t know what’s happening,” he said in 911 audio of the incident. “Somebody kicked in the door, and shot my girlfriend.”
Police said they obtained a no-knock warrant as part of a drug investigation because they believed Taylor was receiving packages on behalf of a suspect. But no illicit items were found. Taylor’s family said she was never involved in drugs.
[Screengrab via Breonna Taylor]