LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — The U.S. Justice Department is recommending an ex-Kentucky police officer convicted of using excessive force during the deadly Breonna Taylor raid should serve no prison time, an abrupt about-face after spending years prosecuting the former detective.
Brett Hankison is the only officer who fired his weapon the night of the March 2020 botched drug raid who has faced criminal charges. His shots didn't hit or injure anyone, though they flew through Taylor's walls into a neighboring apartment.
A federal judge will decide Hankison's sentence, which could amount to several years, on Monday at a hearing. But if the judge heeds the Justice Department's request, it would mean that none of the Louisville police officers involved in the botched raid would face any prison time.
The Justice Department, which has changed leadership under President Donald Trump since Hankison's conviction, said in a sentencing memo this week that "there is no need for a prison sentence to protect the public” from Hankison. Federal prosecutors asked the judge to sentence him to time already served, which amounts to one day, and three years of supervised probation.
Prosecutors at his previous federal trials aggressively pursued a conviction against Hankison, 49, arguing that he blindly fired 10 shots into Taylor's windows without identifying a target. Taylor was shot in her hallway by two other officers after her boyfriend fired from inside the apartment, striking an officer in the leg.
But in the sentencing memo, federal prosecutors wrote that though Hankison's “response in these fraught circumstances was unreasonable given the benefit of hindsight, that unreasonable response did not kill or wound Breonna Taylor, her boyfriend, her neighbors, defendant’s fellow officers, or anyone else.”
Activists who protested in the streets after Taylor's death in 2020 seized on the narrative that under the Department of Justice recommendation, Hankison would serve just one day in jail for the conviction.
Civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who helped Taylor's family secure a $12 million wrongful death settlement against the city of Louisville, said the Justice Department's recommendation “is an insult to the life of Breonna Taylor and a blatant betrayal of the jury’s decision.”
“Recommending just one day in prison sends the unmistakable message that white officers can violate the civil rights of Black Americans with near-total impunity,” Crump said in a statement on social media.
Shameka Parrish-Wright, who marched in numerous protests and ran for mayor after Taylor's death, called the Justice Department's memo “a devastating slap in the face.”
“To those directly impacted and to everyone who understands the broader systemic failures this case revealed, one day behind bars does not suffice,” Parrish-Wright, now a Louisville city council member, said in a media release. “This is not justice.”
Louisville Mayor Craig Greenberg said Hankison’s conviction “warrant a serious prison sentence.”
A presentence report from the U.S. Probation Office said Hankison should face a range of 135 to 168 months imprisonment on the excessive force conviction, according to the memo. But federal prosecutors said a number of factors — including that Hankison's two other trials ended with no convictions — should greatly reduce the potential punishment.
The memorandum was submitted by Harmeet Dhillon, the chief of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division and a political appointee of Trump, who in May moved to cancel settlements with Louisville and Minneapolis that had called for an overhaul of their police departments.
In the Taylor case, three other ex-Louisville police officers have been charged with crafting a falsified warrant, but they have not yet gone to trial. None of them were at the scene when Taylor was shot.
The death of the 26-year-old Black woman, along with the May 2020 police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, sparked racial injustice protests nationwide that year.
A separate jury deadlocked on federal charges against Hankison in 2023, and he was acquitted on state charges of wanton endangerment in 2022.
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Associated Press writer Eric Tucker contributed to this report.
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This story has been updated to correct the sentencing date to Monday, July 21.
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