KY. COP CANNED
Accused of ‘blindly’ shooting Breonna Taylor
One of the three police officers involved in the fatal shooting of Breonna Taylor is being terminated for “blindly” firing 10 rounds into her apartment, the Louisville Metro Police Department announced Friday.
Officer Brett Hankison “displayed an extreme indifference to the value of human life” when he “wantonly and blindly” opened fire inside Taylor’s apartment on March 13, police chief Robert Schroeder said in a letter advising Hankison of his firing that was shared online.
“You used deadly force by blindly firing ten rounds into Breonna Taylor’s apartment without supporting facts that your deadly force was directed at a person (who) posed an immediate threat of danger or serious injury to yourself or others,” the chief wrote.
“In fact, the ten rounds you fired were into a patio door and window which were covered with material that completely prevented you from verifying any person as an immediate threat or more importantly any innocent persons present,” the chief wrote.
“You further failed to be cognizant of the direction in which your firearm was discharged. Some of the rounds you fired actually traveled into the apartment next to Ms. Taylor’s, endangering the three lives in that apartment,” the chief said.
“I find your conduct a shock to the conscience. I am alarmed and stunned you used deadly force in this fashion,” the chief said.
Taylor family lawyer Benjamin Crump reacted to the news with a lengthy Twitter post.
“After 3 MONTHS we’re finally starting to get #JusticeForBreonnaTaylor. This termination of 1 of the 3 officers who killed #BreonnaTaylor is long overdue. But it’s only the beginning,” he wrote.
“We need to see ALL of the LMPD officers involved in Breonna Taylor’s murder FIRED and ARRESTED!!,” he added.
Louisville, Ky., Mayor Greg Fischer also announced Hankison’s firing Friday with a statement in which he complained he was barred from elaborating.
“Unfortunately, due to a provision in state law that I very much would like to see changed, both the chief and I are precluded from talking about what brought us to this moment, or even the timing of this decision,” the mayor said.
Hankison was one of three plainclothes police officers who used a battering ram to gain entry into Taylor’s apartment shortly after midnight on March 13.
Taylor, 26, and her boyfriend Kenneth Walker, 27, were in bed at the time and thought they were the victims of a home invasion, Crump previously told The News.
Taylor, a licensed EMT working in a hospital emergency room, was shot at least eight times in the ensuing chaos.
Her boyfriend Kenneth Walker, a licensed gun owner, used his legal firearm in selfdefense, Crump said.
“Somebody kicked in the door and shot my girlfriend,” Walker said in his distressed 911 call.
Hankison and the other two officers — Jon Mattingly and Myles Cosgrove — were serving the no-knock warrant in a narcotics case involving a suspect who allegedly received packages at Taylor’s address years earlier.
The suspect had been apprehended at another location hours before the fatal shooting of Taylor, unbeknown to the officers at her address, Crump said.
Louisville’s Metro Council recently voted to ban the controversial use of no-knock warrants in Kentucky’s biggest city.
The ongoing criminal investigation of Taylor’s death is now in the hands of the Kentucky Attorney General and the FBI.
The release of Walker’s 911 call in late May ignited days of protests in Louisville that also called for justice in the May 25 police homicide of George Floyd in Minneapolis.