{"id":21312,"date":"2022-03-04T04:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-03-04T09:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/?p=21312"},"modified":"2022-03-04T04:01:15","modified_gmt":"2022-03-04T09:01:15","slug":"breonna-taylor-ex-officer-brett-hankinson-found-not-guilty-in-deadly-raid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/2022\/03\/04\/breonna-taylor-ex-officer-brett-hankinson-found-not-guilty-in-deadly-raid\/","title":{"rendered":"Breonna Taylor: Ex-officer Brett Hankinson found not guilty in deadly raid"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A former Louisville police detective has been found not guilty of recklessly endangering neighbours during the chaotic night-time raid that led to the death of Breonna Taylor.<\/b><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Brett Hankinson fired 10 shots during the incident, which took place during a “no-knock” search of the black woman’s home in Kentucky in March 2020.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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In court, Mr Hankinson maintained he did nothing wrong during the melee.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Ms Taylor’s death sparked racial injustice rallies across America.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Mr Hankinson, 45, was the only officer charged in the case.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The jury delivered the verdict on Thursday about three hours after closing arguments wrapped in the week-long trial, clearing him on all three wanton endangerment charges.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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In dramatic court testimony on Wednesday, Mr Hankinson said he believed he was coming under automatic weapons fire during the raid. He described seeing silhouettes and muzzle flashes after police used a battering ram to knock down Ms Taylor’s door.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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During the raid, Ms Taylor’s boyfriend shot and wounded one of the officers. Mr Hankinson said he quickly turned a corner and opened fire to “stop the threat”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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A total of 32 shots were fired. Prosecutors alleged some were by Mr Hankinson as he entered a neighbouring flat, endangering three people inside: Cody Etherson, his pregnant wife Chelsey Napper, and their five-year-old son.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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When asked if he believed he did anything wrong during the raid, Mr Hankinson said “absolutely not”. He went on to say, however, that Ms Taylor, a 26-year-old hospital worker who was shot multiple times, “didn’t need to die that night”, prompting her mother to angrily storm out of the courtroom.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Prosecutors cast doubt on his version of events, and argued he was shooting “wildly” but Mr Hankinson’s defence attorney, Stewart Matthews, said he “did what he had to do” in a chaotic situation.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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“This all happened in such a short span,” he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Mr Hankinson’s trial was the only one stemming from the death of Ms Taylor. A grand jury cleared the two white officers who fatally shot Ms Taylor in September 2020. Mr Hankinson was sacked four months after the raid.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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In 2020, the Taylor family sued Louisville police and reached a $12m (\u00a39m) settlement.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Her death – along with that of two black men, George Floyd in Minnesota and Ahmaud Arbery in Georgia – sparked anti-racism protests across the US and the globe.<\/p>\n

Source: bbc.co.uk<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A former Louisville police detective has been found not guilty of recklessly endangering neighbours during the chaotic night-time raid that led to the death of Breonna Taylor. Brett Hankinson fired 10 shots during the incident, […]<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21260,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,3],"tags":[7348,8315,1650,7347,7221],"class_list":{"0":"post-21312","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"category-usa","9":"tag-breonna-taylor","10":"tag-brett-hankison","11":"tag-kentucky","12":"tag-louisville","13":"tag-us-police-killings","14":"pmpro-has-access"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21312","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21312"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21312\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21314,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21312\/revisions\/21314"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21260"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21312"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21312"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21312"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}