Grand Jury Indicts Brett Hankison In Breonna Taylor Case On 3 Counts of Wanton Endangerment
Demonstrators Are Outraged After Grand Jury Charges Brett Hankisonwith 3 Counts of Wanton Endangerment
A grand jury indicted former Louisville police officer Brett Hankison, who fatally shot Breonna Taylor on three counts of wanton endangerment in the first degree. Two other officers involved in the March shooting — Sgt. John Mattingly and Det. Myles Cosgrove — were not charged.
The long awaited decision comes 6 months after after Taylor, a 26-year-old Black EMT worker, was shot to death by Louisville police officers in her home. The officers forced their way into her home on a no-knock warrant in a narcotics investigation.
Taylor was sleeping next to her boyfriend, Kenneth Walker III, in the early hours of March 13, and when they heard a noise they both got up and walked to the door.
“She’s yelling at the top of her lungs — and I am too at this point — ‘who is it?’ ” recalled Walker, her boyfriend. “No answer. No response. No anything.”
Walker told investigators when he heard banging at the door his first thought was that it was Taylor’s ex-boyfriend. He was concerned there might be trouble, so he grabbed his gun.
As Walker and Taylor made their way down a hallway toward the front door, Walker said, the door flew off its hinges.
“So I just let off one shot,” he said. “I still can’t see who it is or anything.”
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After the officers used a battering ram to enter, Mattingly was shot in the leg, severing his femoral artery, he told investigators.
He and two other officers — Hankison and Det. Myles Cosgrove — then discharged their weapons, according to the CNN review. Taylor was killed in the barrage of shots from the three officers. Walker, who was unharmed, dialed 911 and told the dispatcher someone had kicked in the door and shot his girlfriend.
The decision comes after no charges and a lengthy investigation following months of demonstrations.
Taylor’s sparked nationwide protest followed by the late May killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police.
Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer and Louisville Interim Police Chief Robert Schroeder are anticipating new protest have declared a state of emergency and a 72-hour countywide curfew starting 9 p.m.
The Kentucky National Guard has been activated, Schroeder said.
