Breonna Taylor: Jury deadlocks over ex-officer Brett Hankison’s fate

The federal trial of an ex-police officer accused of violating Breonna Taylor’s civil rights has ended in a mistrial with a deadlocked jury.

It marks the second time Brett Hankison has avoided a conviction relating to the case, after he was found not guilty on state charges last year.

Ms Taylor was killed in a botched 2020 police raid in Kentucky. Her death sparked mass racial injustice rallies.

It was not immediately clear whether prosecutors would seek a re-trial.

The nine-day trial had revolved around whether Mr Hankison’s use of force had violated the rights of Ms Taylor, her boyfriend Kenneth Walker and her next-door neighbours.

While Ms Taylor and her boyfriend slept at her apartment in the early morning hours of 13 March 2020, officers used a battering ram to knock down the door.

Mr Hankison fired 10 rounds through Ms Taylor’s window and sliding glass door as officers sought to execute the “no-knock” search warrant.

Another officer, Myles Cosgrove, fired the shot that killed Ms Taylor. The shots Mr Hankison fired did not strike anyone, but some landed in the neighbouring apartment, which was home to a young child.

The raid was part of a drug investigation, though none were found in the home of Ms Taylor, an emergency medical technician.

On the stand in Louisville, the ex-detective admitted he could not see a target but believed a shootout was taking place and acted to save his and his fellow officers’ lives.

Mr Hankison’s attorney argued he acted swiftly to help his colleagues, believing they were in danger because of gunfire coming from inside the apartment. Ms Taylor’s boyfriend said he fired a single shot when officers knocked down the door because they did not announce themselves and he thought they were intruders.

“I had to react,” Mr Hankison testified, according to the Associated Press. “I had no choice.”

Jurors were in their fourth day of deliberations over the two counts against Mr Hankison when they told the judge on Thursday that they could not come to a decision.

District Judge Rebecca Grady Jennings had earlier urged the 12-member, mostly white, panel to keep trying to reach a verdict after they indicated they were at an impasse, the Associated Press reported.

She told the court that security officials in the building had to visit the jury room in response to “elevated voices” heard during the deliberations, the outlet added.

The dual deprivation-of-rights charges against Mr Hankison, 47, carried a maximum sentence of life in prison.

He was the only officer who fired his weapon during the raid to be criminally charged by the government.

In March 2022, a Kentucky state jury spent about three hours in deliberation before finding Mr Hankison not guilty on three counts of felony wanton endangerment during the incident.

But three other former officers involved with the raid have been charged in separate federal cases.

One of them, Kelly Goodlett, has pleaded guilty and is expected to testify against the others, Joshua Jaynes and Kyle Meany, in their joint trial next year.

In December, Mr Walker received a $2m (£1.7m) settlement from the city over the incident.

The deaths of Ms Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery in Georgia and George Floyd in Minnesota, sparked widespread anti-racism protests across the country beginning in May 2020.