Former Louisville police officer Brett Hankison was sentenced to 33 months in prison for violating Breonna Taylor’s rights during the raid in which she was shot and killed, after President Donald Trump’s Justice Department asked the judge to imprison him for a single day.
Ms Taylor, a Black woman, was shot and killed by Louisville, Kentucky, police officers in March 2020 after they used a no-knock warrant at her home.
Her boyfriend, believing they were intruders, fired on the officers with a legally owned firearm, prompting them to return fire.
Ms Taylor’s death, along with the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis at the hands of a white police officer, sparked racial justice protests across the US over the treatment of people of colour by police departments.
US District Judge Rebecca Grady Jennings, who handed down the sentence, criticised prosecutors for making a “180-degree” turn in its approach to the case and said political factors appeared to have influenced its recommendation for a one-day prison sentence.
“This sentence will not and cannot be measured against Ms Taylor’s life and the incident as a whole,” Jennings said.
The sentence was at the low end of the 33 to 41 months called for under federal sentencing guidelines, but far more severe than the Justice Department under Mr Trump had sought.
Taylor’s mother, Tamika Palmer, several other family members and Kenneth Walker, her boyfriend at the time, all spoke in court to ask the judge to impose the maximum penalty.
“A piece of me was taken from me that day. You have the power to make today the first day of true accountability,” Ms Palmer told the judge.
Former Louisville police officer Brett Hankison
Ex-officer apologises
During President Joe Biden’s administration, the Justice Department brought criminal civil rights charges against the officers involved in both Ms Taylor and Mr Floyd’s deaths.
Hankison was convicted by a federal jury in November 2024 of one count of violating Ms Taylor’s civil rights, after the first attempt to prosecute him ended with a mistrial.
He was separately acquitted on state charges in 2022.
In a brief statement to the court, Hankison apologised to Ms Taylor’s family and friends and said he would have acted differently if he had known about issues with the preparation of the search warrant that led police to Ms Taylor’s home that night.
“I never would have fired my gun,” he said.
The Justice Department’s sentencing memo for Hankison downplayed his role in the raid at Ms Taylor’s home, saying he “did not shoot Ms Taylor and is not otherwise responsible for her death.”
The memo was notable because it was not signed by any of the career prosecutors – those who were not political appointees – who had tried the case.
It was submitted on 16 July by Harmeet Dhillon, a political appointee by Mr Trump to lead the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, and her counsel Robert Keenan.
Mr Keenan previously worked as a federal prosecutor in Los Angeles, where he argued that a local deputy sheriff convicted of civil rights violations, Trevor Kirk, should have his conviction on the felony counts struck and should not serve prison time.
The department’s sentencing recommendation in the Hankison case marks the latest effort by the Trump administration to put the brakes on the department’s police accountability work.
Earlier this year, Ms Dhillon nixed plans to enter into a court-approved settlement with the Louisville Police Department, and rescinded the Civil Rights Division’s prior findings of widespread civil rights abuses against people of colour.
Attorneys for Ms Taylor’s family called the department’s sentencing recommendation for Hankison an insult, and urged the judge to “deliver true justice” for her.
