Why do US prosecutors want a one-day sentence for Breonna Taylor shooting?

Al Jazeera

3 days ago

The United States Department of Justice (DOJ) is seeking a shortened prison sentence of just one day for an ex-police officer convicted of using excessive force during a raid in Louisville, Kentucky that led to the death of Breonna Taylor, an African-American medical worker, in March 2020.
Brett Hankison was convicted in November last year of blindly firing several shots during a failed drug raid, which resulted in Taylor's death. Although his shots were not the ones which hit Taylor, prosecutors argued his actions were a violation of Taylor's rights and others present at the scene.
After it spent several years pursuing a conviction under the previous administration, the DOJ's recommendation on Thursday represents a 180-degree turn, which has caused anger in the Black community.
Hankison's sentencing will take place on Monday, when a federal judge will decide his term at a hearing.
Here's what we know about the case:
What happened to Breonna Taylor?
Taylor, an emergency medical technician, was shot dead during a raid by police from the Louisville Metro Police Department in her apartment in the early hours of March 13, 2020.
Seven plain-clothed officers executed a 'no-knock' search warrant. Three officers broke down the door to her two-bedroom apartment, where Taylor was in bed with her boyfriend, Kenneth Walker.
Walker, who possessed a licensed firearm, fired one shot. He later told police he thought the men were intruders.
One officer, Jonathan Mattingly, was struck and wounded in the thigh. Mattingly and his colleague, Miles Cosgrove, directly returned fire into the apartment. Cosgrove delivered the fatal shot that killed Taylor. She was shot six times and died in the hallway.
Hankison ran to the side of the building and fired 10 shots into the apartment through a window and sliding door covered with blinds. Some of the bullets hit an occupied apartment adjacent to Taylor's. A report by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) determined that the police fired 32 shots in total.
Jamarcus Glover, Taylor's ex-boyfriend, had been the original target of the search, as authorities believed he hid narcotics at Taylor's apartment. He was arrested at a separate location in Louisville that night, before Taylor's killing. It is unclear if the same team of officers arrested Glover.
Taylor's murder, and an initial absence of charges against the police officers involved, triggered mass, months-long protests across the country.
No officers faced direct charges over Taylor's death. Only Hankison faced charges for firing blindly.
Taylor's case and the killing of George Floyd in May 2020, fuelled a national reckoning on racism and police brutality as part of the Black Lives Matter movement. Taylor's family received a $12m settlement from the city of Louisville in September 2020. The city also banned no-knock raids with the introduction of the 'Breonna Law'.
Why are prosecutors recommending a one-day sentence?
Prosecutors under the Trump administration are recommending that Hankison serve no further jail term for the case, and that he should instead be sentenced to time already served plus three years of supervised probation.
Hankison served one day in jail after he was arrested in 2023 for his first court appearance. At the time, federal prosecutors under the Biden administration sought a conviction against him that could have amounted to a maximum life sentence.
In November 2024, a federal jury found Hankison guilty of using excessive force and depriving Taylor of her civil rights.
However, in a memo on Thursday, the DOJ said there 'is no need for a prison sentence to protect the public' from Hankison.
The memo added that although Hankison's response in the 'fraught circumstances was unreasonable' in hindsight, 'that unreasonable response did not kill or wound Breonna Taylor, her boyfriend, her neighbours, defendant's fellow officers, or anyone else'.
What happened to the other officers?
Hankison is the only one of the three officers at the scene to face charges. He was fired from the police force in June 2020, and Cosgrove was fired in 2021, after local investigations determined they had violated standard practice by shooting blindly. Mattingly retired in April 2021.
Another ex-officer who was not at the scene pleaded guilty to federal charges of violating Taylor's civil rights by falsely stating on the search warrant that Taylor received packages for Glover. Two other former officers pleaded not guilty to similar charges.
If the court heeds the DOJ's advice, none of the officers involved in the case would have faced jail time. It is not certain that the court will agree to the recommendation.
How have Taylor's family responded?
Ben Crump, the civil rights lawyer who helped Taylor's family secure the $12m settlement against Louisville, said in a statement on the social media site X that the DOJ's recommendation was an 'insult to the life of Breonna Taylor and a blatant betrayal of the jury's decision'.
'This sets a dangerous precedent,' Crump wrote on Thursday. 'When a police officer is found guilty of violating someone's constitutional rights, there must be real accountability and justice. 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.'
What was the verdict in Hankison's trial?
The DOJ, under a different leadership, charged Hankison in 2022 on one count of violating the civil rights of Taylor and her boyfriend, Walker, as well as Taylor's neighbours, when he blindly fired into her home.
The state of Kentucky arraigned Hankison on similar charges but cleared him of wrongdoing in March 2022.
However, after four days of deliberation, a federal jury declared a mistrial in November 2023, as jurors were unable to reach a joint decision.
Witnesses gave conflicting testimonies, including about whether the police officers had announced themselves at the scene of the shooting. Walker, for one, testified that the officers did not identify themselves before breaking in.
Other police officers, including Cosgrove, also testified that Hankison had violated standard practice when he shot into Taylor's apartment blindly, and without identifying a target.
Hankison, who took the stand, defended his 'helplessness' at the scene, saying he believed his team was being attacked. The officer claimed he saw Walker's figure illuminated by the muzzle flash from his weapon and said he thought the gun was an AR-15 rifle, which prompted him to go to the other side of the apartment and open fire.
Do police officers receive light sentences for killing or assaulting Black people in the US?
Many activists and rights groups believe the US law enforcement and justice systems allow officers, especially white officers involved in the wrongful deaths and assault of Black people, to get away with overly lenient punishment, compared with civilians.
Derek Chauvin, the officer who knelt on George Floyd for nine minutes until he died in May 2020, was seen as an exception when he was sentenced to 22 years in jail.
Some other cases which have drawn criticism for light sentences for police officers, however, include the following:
Police officer Kimberly Potter shot dead Daunte Wright, a 20-year-old Black man, during a traffic stop in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota, in April 2021. Potter, who shot Wright at close range in the chest, later said she had meant to use her service Taser rather than her gun. Wright died at the scene.
Potter was found guilty of first-degree manslaughter and second-degree manslaughter and received a sentence of just two years, serving 16 months. The city of Brooklyn Center paid a settlement of $3.25m to Wright's family for his wrongful death.
Following public outrage and protests over Wright's death, the police department changed its policies about arresting people for misdemeanour offences. Wright's death also led to changes in police Taser procedures in Minnesota and other states.
Elijah Jovan McClain, 23, was arrested by police officers in Aurora, Colorado, while walking home from a convenience store on August 24, 2019. The police officers were responding to a call from a person concerned about an unarmed man wearing a ski mask and 'looking sketchy'.
McClain was handcuffed while one of the officers applied a chokehold. When paramedics arrived, they injected McClain with 500mg of ketamine to sedate him. He suffered cardiac arrest and died in hospital six days later.
Three police officers and two paramedics were charged with his death. Two officers were acquitted of all charges. Both paramedics and one of the officers were convicted of negligent homicide. One of the paramedics was also found guilty of second-degree assault and sentenced to five years in prison and three years' probation.
Chicago ex-officer Jason Van Dyke was sentenced to just seven years in 2019 on charges of second-degree murder and 16 counts of aggravated battery over the October 2014 shooting of Laquan McDonald, a 17-year-old African American.
Initial police reports claimed officers had responded to alerts of a teenager behaving erratically, and that McDonald had slashed the tyres of a truck with a knife and lunged at officers.
Van Dyke fired 16 shots at McDonald as he walked away from police, according to dashcam footage released a year later. The officer was released early in 2022 for good behaviour.
In 2019, the Chicago Police Board fired four officers for allegedly covering up the shooting. The nine-member board found the officers had exaggerated the threat posed by the teenager.
Former Dallas police officer Amber Guyger was sentenced to 10 years for murder after she killed her 26-year-old African-American neighbour and accountant, Botham Jean, in Dallas in September 2018. The sentence was far less than the 28 years prosecutors had sought.
Guyger claimed she had entered Jean's apartment, which was directly below hers, by mistake, and thought he was an intruder.
Mark Bessner was sentenced to five-to-15 years for involuntary manslaughter after he fired his Taser at African-American teenager Damon Grimes during a police car chase in Detroit in August 2017. Grimes crashed and died from his injuries.
Los Angeles Officers Laurence Powell, Timothy Wind, Theodore Briseno and Stacey Koon were charged with excessive force but later acquitted after severely assaulting Rodney King, an African American, in March 1991.
King was pulled over on suspicion of intoxicated driving but was severely assaulted, resulting in scores of fractures and brain damage. A court's decision to acquit the officers led to widespread riots in the city, during which 63 people died.
Officers FH Pascal, WF Stevenson, and PL Whalen were sentenced to 20 years on manslaughter charges for the March 1938 death of Berry Lawson, a 27-year-old African American, but were pardoned within a year.
Lawson was sleeping in the lobby of the Seattle hotel where he worked when he was arrested for loitering.
The officers claimed Lawson was intoxicated and had fallen down a set of stairs during the arrest; however, evidence later emerged that they had beaten Lawson to death and arranged a fake witness to testify that Lawson had fallen.