[BBC] A former police in the US state of Kentucky has been found guilty of violating the civil rights of Breonna Taylor, a black woman killed in her own home during a botched raid four years ago.
Summarizing the many articles on this cause célèbre in the Rantburg archives: the Louisville police raided her apartment back in March 2020 because she was holding the profits of her old boyfriend, a drug dealer, while living with her new boyfriend, another drug dealer. The new boyfriend shot at the police while hiding behind her, allowing her body to absorb the bullets aimed back at him. The police claim they knocked; someone in the Louisville PD leaked information that the address was raided because the old boyfriend was using her rental car, which had a bill with her address and phone number on it.
Brett Hankison, 47, could face up to life in prison after being convicted of using excessive force against the 26-year-old emergency room technician.
But the jury also found him not guilty on another charge of violating the civil rights of one of Taylor's neighbours. It was the third time Hankison had stood trial in the case.
The verdict marks the first time any officer has been convicted in the deadly raid on 13 March 2020 that made Taylor's name a rallying cry during the racial justice unrest of that year.
Prosecutors wanted Hankison to be immediately taken into custody, but their request was rejected by the judge, reports the local newspaper.
The jury of five white men, one black man and six white women began their deliberations on Wednesday.
The indictment accused Hankison of depriving Taylor of the right to be free from unreasonable seizures and depriving her neighbours of the right to be free from the deprivation of liberty without due process of law.
He fired 10 times into her apartment, in order, he said, to protect fellow officers as Taylor's boyfriend opened fire when officers broke down the door.
Hankison took the stand over two days of testimony during the retrial, telling the jurors he was "trying to stay alive, trying to keep my partners alive".
He was the first of the four officers charged in the case to face a jury. Another former officer, Kelly Goodlett, pleaded guilty to falsifying the search warrant for Taylor’s home.
The remaining two officers had their federal charges thrown out by a judge earlier this year. The US Justice Department recently indicted the two on new charges.
Taylor was killed after officers wearing plain clothes executed a "no-knock" search warrant at her home. They burst into her apartment in the early morning hours while she and her boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, were asleep. Authorities believed Taylor's former boyfriend was using her home to hide narcotics.
Mr Walker fired a single shot when they knocked the door down, hitting one officer, Sgt John Mattingly, in the leg. Mr Walker said the officers did not announce themselves as police, and he thought they were intruders. The three officers returned fire, shooting 32 bullets into the flat.
Another officer fired the shot that killed Taylor, but prosecutors said his use of deadly force was justified because Walker had opened fire first.
None of Hankison's bullets hit anyone, but they did enter a neighbouring property, where a pregnant woman, a five-year-old and a man had been sleeping.
A subsequent police report contained errors, including listing Taylor's injuries as "none" and saying no force was used to enter, when a battering ram had been used.
Hankison was fired from Louisville Metro Police Department in June 2020. His previous federal case last year ended in a mistrial when the jury told the judge it could not reach a unanimous verdict. He was previously tried by a Kentucky state jury in March 2022, and acquitted on three counts of felony wanton endangerment.
Taylor's family and Walker both received settlements from the city over the incident. A series of police reforms also were introduced in Louisville.
Hankison is due to be sentenced on 12 March next year.
Posted by: Frank G ||
11/03/2024 6:42 Comments ||
Top||
#3
#1 SCOTUS over ruled the Constitution on that one.
It's all legalese. The Founders intended for it to be about the specific offense, all inclusive. Now days, you violate 23 different laws for the same specific offense. It all started rolling with Rodney King. After the officers were acquitted in a state court, the Feds prosecuted them.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[Regnum] Former Bolivian President Evo Morales, whose supporters have been blocking roads throughout the republic for 19 days, has declared a hunger strike and called on the current authorities to engage in dialogue. He wrote about this on November 1 on social media.
The former head of state noted that the people who support him do not want bloodshed.
“Nice country ya got here. Sure would be a shame if something happened to it.”
Morales specified that the hunger strike will continue until the government orders the army and police to stop fighting the protesters, and until it creates two discussion forums to discuss economic and political issues.
He also called on international institutions and friendly countries to mediate in the dialogue between the authorities and the protesters. The former president also addressed his supporters, asking them to consider a pause in blocking the roads.
As reported by Regnum News Agency, on November 1 it became known that protesters supporting Morales seized a military unit in Villa Tunari in the Bolivian department of Cochabamba and took servicemen hostage. The current President of Bolivia, Luis Arce, specified that the supporters of the ex-president stormed three military facilities at once, and the Armed Forces stated that the participants in the seizure seized weapons. The demonstrators in Bolivia are protesting against rising food prices and fuel shortages.
On October 27, Morales posted a video on social media showing the moment when armed men opened fire on his car. The former president claims that the attempt to detain him was on orders from the Bolivian government.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
