A Kentucky jury has acquitted a former detective of endangering neighbours in a botched raid that killed black woman Breonna Taylor in her home, clearing police of criminal liability in a case that rocked the US.
Photo: AFP/ Getty
Detective Brett Hankison, 45, whose stray bullets hit a neighbouring apartment in the city of Louisville during the execution of a "no knock" search warrant after midnight, was the only officer charged in the case, with wanton endangerment.
Hankison could be heard sobbing behind his face mask as the verdict was read three times, one for each of the occupants of the neighbouring apartment, according a Court TV reporter who was in the courtroom.
Relatives of Taylor who were in the gallery also wept, the reporter said.
The jury deliberated for about three hours after hearing closing arguments on Thursday at the conclusion of a one-week trial at Jefferson County Circuit Court.
The death of Taylor, a 26-year-old emergency medical technician who was unarmed, was one in a trio of cases that fuelled protests against racial injustice and police violence in the US and internationally.
The other cases resulted in guilty verdicts for the murders of two black men in 2020: George Floyd in Minneapolis and Ahmaud Arbery in Brunswick, Georgia.
Those convictions had offered a measure of justice after black activists and victims have said their protests against racial violence were largely ignored before the advent of cellphone video.
In this case a grand jury cleared two white officers who shot Taylor but charged Hankison, who is also white, for endangering neighbours in the adjacent apartment. A grand juror on the case later said Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron only presented the wanton endangerment charges against Hankison to the grand jury.
That meant the sole trial to result from her death hinged on whether a police officer was justified in firing his weapon upon hearing a barrage of gunfire.
"This trial was not even for the bullets that killed Taylor. No matter what the outcome may have been, justice for Breonna was never an option. We must demand more," the American Civil Liberties Union of Kentucky said on Twitter.
Police wanted to search the home in connection with a drug investigation in which Taylor's ex-boyfriend was a suspect.
After police broke down Taylor's door, her new boyfriend, fearing a break-in and saying he did not hear police identify themselves, fired one shot from a handgun that wounded an officer. That officer and another returned fire, shooting 22 times.
In tearful testimony on Wednesday, Hankison said he mistakenly believed his fellow officers were coming under heavy fire. He shot 10 times from outside the apartment.
"I think it was absolutely the fact that he was doing his job as a police officer," defence attorney Stew Mathews told reporters after the verdict, according to the Louisville Courier Journal.
"The jury felt like, you go out and perform your duty and your brother officer gets shot, you've got a right to defend yourself."
Taylor's mother, Tamika Palmer, left without commenting, the Courier Journal said. Taylor's family won a $12 million wrongful death settlement from the city of Louisville in 2020.
Taylor's death on 13 March, 2020, at first drew little national attention but was thrust into prominence after a Minneapolis police officer killed Floyd by pinning a knee to his neck on 25 May, 2020.
Around then, video surfaced showing the February 2020 shooting death of Arbery after he was chased by three white men.
Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin was convicted of murdering Floyd last year and sentenced to more than 22 years in prison.
The three civilians charged in Arbery's death were convicted of murder in a state trial last year.
-Reuters