Judge postpones ex-officer’s trial date in Breonna Taylor case

The large volume of evidence collected in the Breonna Taylor case prompted a judge on Wednesday to push back the trial date for a former Kentucky police officer who fired blindly into Taylor’s apartment during the deadly no-knock raid on her apartment in 2020.

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The trial will mark a second attempt by prosecutors to convict Brett Hankison for his actions on the night Taylor, a 26-year-old Black woman, was shot to death by police in Louisville. Taylor, who worked as an emergency medical technician, was shot multiple times during the raid. The warrant for the raid was later found to be flawed.
US District Judge Rebecca Grady Jennings moved the trial back about two months to October 30, after Hankison’s lawyers asked for more time to process massive amounts of evidence turned over by federal prosecutors.

Hankison was indicted by the US Justice Department last year along with three other officers, one of whom has pleaded guilty to helping falsify the warrant used to enter Taylor’s apartment on March 13, 2020. Taylor was killed in her hallway after officers broke down the door and Taylor’s boyfriend fired a shot that struck a police sergeant. None of Hankison’s shots hit Taylor.

Her killing along with George Floyd’s death at the hands of Minnesota police in 2020 ignited protests that summer around the country over racial injustice. US Attorney General Merrick Garland announced the federal indictments in the Taylor case in August, remarking that Taylor “should be alive today.”

Hankison is the only officer who fired shots during the raid who has been charged in any court. Prosecutors determined that two other officers who fired and struck Taylor were justified in shooting back after Taylor’s boyfriend fired at them.

Hankison attorney Jack Byrd also told Jennings Wednesday that his team needs time to meet with use-of-force and crime scene experts to go over evidence.

Hankison, 46, was acquitted in March of charges brought by state prosecutors for endangering Taylor’s next-door neighbors with shots he fired into Taylor’s apartment that went through her walls.

Hankison retreated from the open doorway and fired 10 bullets into a sliding door and window on the side of Taylor’s apartment. The more recent federal charges accuse him of endangering neighbors along with Taylor and her boyfriend.

Another former officer, Kelly Goodlett, has pleaded guilty to a federal conspiracy charge, and is expected to testify in the cases against two more officers who were involved in crafting the Taylor warrant. Former detective Joshua Jaynes and former Sgt. Kyle Meany are charged with conspiring to deprive Taylor of her civil rights. Jaynes and Meany are set to be tried together on October 25.

Goodlett’s guilty plea was moved from last year to December 13, presumably after Jaynes and Meany’s cases are finished.

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