Trump Justice Department seeks one day in prison for ex-officer in Breonna Taylor case

The Justice Department is seeking no prison time for Brett Hankison, a former officer who blindly shot into Breonna Taylor’s home in 2020.

WASHINGTON — The Justice Department is seeking no prison time for a former officer who blindly shot into Breonna Taylor’s home during a botched 2020 raid that sparked a federal inquiry into policing in Louisville, Kentucky.

Brett Hankison, a former Louisville Metro Police Department detective whose shots did not strike Taylor, was convicted of deprivation of rights under color of law in November. Federal prosecutors said he fired 10 shots through a window and a sliding glass door that were covered with blinds and curtains. Multiple bullets traveled through the wall and into an apartment next door but did not hit anyone.

The officers who fired the shots that killed Taylor were not charged, as they were returning fire when Taylor’s boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, fired as police breached the apartment.

In a sentencing memo filed late Wednesday, the Justice Department wrote that “reasonable minds might disagree as to whether defendant Hankison’s conduct constituted a seizure under the Fourth Amendment in the first place” and that there “is no need for a prison sentence to protect the public from defendant.” A judge ruled in February that the evidence was sufficient for a jury to believe that Taylor was still alive when Hankison fired the first five bullets through the bedroom window.

Breonna Taylor was fatally shot during a botched raid at her home in 2020.Apu Gomes / AFP via Getty Images fileThe sentencing memo seeks one day of incarceration, which is the length of time that Hankison spent behind bars when he was initially booked on charges. No career line prosecutors from the Justice Department signed off on the sentencing memo. The memo is instead signed by Trump administration official Robert J. Keenan, senior counsel for the Civil Rights Division, who was involved in the Justice Department's effort to undo a jury verdict that found a former Los Angeles County deputy guilty of a felony charge in an excessive force case.