A former American police officer from Kentucky was convicted Friday, November 1, by federal courts for his involvement in the death of a young black woman, Breonna Taylor. His sentence will be pronounced next March 2025.
The verdict is in. More than four years after the shooting death of Breonna Taylor, former American police officer Brett Hankison was found guilty on Friday, November 1, by a jury in Louisville, the largest city in Kentucky. He will receive his sentence in March 2025.
Killed in the middle of a search
In March 2020, Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old black woman, was killed by Louisville police officers during a search, while an investigation for drug trafficking targeted her former boyfriend. The events occurred in the middle of the night at his home. Surprised, his companion thought they were burglars and therefore fired the first shot with a legally owned weapon. The three police officers present responded by wounding Breonna Taylor with several bullets.
Her death had not attracted attention until the death of African-American George Floyd, suffocated by a white police officer in May 2020. The name of the young woman became omnipresent and chanted in all the anti-racist demonstrations which followed the case.
Police practices denounced
Brett Hankison was indicted by local prosecutors in September 2020, not for the death of Breonna Taylor but for having “endangered” his neighbor by discharging his weapon through a partition. But after Brett Hankison’s conviction on Friday, the two other police officers remain charged by federal justice.
A federal investigation in March 2023 reported poor practices by the Louisville police, denouncing excessive use of force and other illegal, discriminatory, even racist practices. The Ministry of Justice denounced “aggressive police practices”, “implemented selectively, in particular against black people”.
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