Former Kentucky police detective Brett Hankison was convicted late Friday on federal charges that he used excessive force by firing into Breonna Taylor’s home in a botched 2020 drug raid.
Taylor, 26, was fatally shot, but not by Hankison, and he was not charged with her death. The ten shots Hankison fired into Taylor’s glass door and windows did not hit anyone, but some entered a next-door neighbor’s apartment. He was acquitted of violating the neighbor’s civil rights.
Police were seeking evidence in a narcotics investigation that targeted her ex-boyfriend, who lived at a different address. Taylor’s boyfriend fired a shot toward the front door because he thought intruders were breaking in, U.S. Attorney Merrick Garland has said. Two officers immediately fired 22 shots into the apartment, one of which killed Taylor.
