The Sundarban
A federal deem sentenced a outdated Louisville, Kentucky, police officer to 33 months in penal complex, with three years of supervised free up, for his feature in a botched raid that by chance killed Breonna Taylor 5 years ago.
The sentence for Brett Hankison, which came after the U.S. Division of Justice had steered a punishment of 1 day in penal complex, closes the guide on a case that helped spark nationwide requires racial justice and police reform. Nevertheless it leaves behind lingering concerns over the difficulties in bringing funds against individual officers in rude force conditions, in addition to how politically polarized the debate over police reform in The US has turn into.
“There used to be no prosecution in there for us; there used to be no prosecution in there for Breonna,” said Tamika Palmer, Ms. Taylor’s mother, after the hearing. “Lets gain walked away with nothing for what they suggested. [But] we’re aloof right here, and I’m grateful that something befell.”
Why We Wrote This
A police officer involved in the raid that killed Breonna Taylor in 2020 used to be sentenced at the present time. The Division of Justice’s potential to the case points to a retreat from police reform efforts.
In 2020, a police tactical unit killed Ms. Taylor, a Unlit emergency room technician, whereas executing a “no-knock warrant” on her condominium. Mr. Hankison, who’s white, is the most productive officer involved in the raid to gain been convicted of a crime. After the Biden Division of Justice successfully prosecuted Mr. Hankison for abusing civil rights, DOJ leadership under President Donald Trump performed a dramatic about-face remaining week, recommending to Assume Rebecca Grady Jennings a sentence of 1 day in penal complex. The Biden administration had suggested an 11-to-14-year sentence.
The sentencing recommendation came amid a monthslong effort by the Trump administration to reverse insurance policies location up under outdated Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden to form out national concerns that U.S. police had turn into too like a flash to make use of violence, in particular when dealing with Unlit suspects. Ms. Taylor’s death – alongside with the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis – helped gasoline nationwide protests against police brutality in 2020. Those followed earlier protests after the police-connected deaths of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, and Eric Garner in Unique York, every in 2014.
Nonetheless these protests, crime spikes in cities where police were highly criticized, and the mammoth assortment of Americans killed by police yearly gain supplied voters with what every now and then appears esteem a binary decision: Demand accountability and invite lawlessness, or defend police and unleash excesses of force. Those involved in police reform snarl lasting alternate strategies require every systemic improvements and individual accountability when things trip atrocious.
“It’s unlucky when police accountability will get tied to partisan projects,” says Ian Adams, a outdated police officer in Utah who’s now a criminologist at the University of South Carolina.
“I don’t know that social sloganeering is how we must be approaching either facet of police accountability,” he provides. “Neither ‘Relief the blue’ nor ‘Command her title’ captures the importance of what we’re doing right here.”
Ben Crump, an attorney for Breonna Taylor’s family, hugs protester Bruce Sweeney on the day of sentencing for outdated Louisville police officer Brett Hankison in Louisville, Kentucky, July 21, 2025. Mr. Hankinson used to be convicted in the deadly shooting of Ms. Taylor during the execution of a “no-knock warrant” at her dwelling in 2020.
A push for reform – and an about-face
A decade ago, President Obama began The US’s sleek police-reform push. He fashioned a Job Power on twenty first Century Policing. His administration urged police departments to adopt physique cameras and severely increased the assortment of federal consent decrees aimed at reforming articulate departments.
The Biden administration ramped up these insurance policies, partly in response to public strain after the deaths of Mr. Floyd and Ms. Taylor. The Justice Division brought federal funds in every conditions. In announcing Mr. Hankison’s conviction, Kristen Clarke – then the assistant attorney fundamental for civil rights – encouraged individuals to “Command her title,” echoing a slogan that protesters mature after Ms. Taylor’s death.
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Source: University of Chicago Law Enforcement Epidemiology Undertaking
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Karen Norris/Workers
President Trump campaigned on a promise to lift a truly plenty of tack on policing concerns, and that promise has been fulfilled in the Hankison case and beyond. He has said that “one right rough, noxious day” of policing would finish retail theft, and he described police clearing out campus protesters at Columbia University as “a ultimate looking thing to survey.” In an April executive reveal, he called on his administration to “unleash high-influence local police forces,” in addition to “give protection to and defend regulations enforcement officers wrongly accused” of crimes.
One in all his first acts in office used to be to pardon two Washington, D.C., police officers convicted for their feature in a fatal police skedaddle.
In Mr. Hankison’s case, the jury verdict remaining year left him facing a most sentence of life in penal complex. Profession prosecutors who strive conditions on the total publish sentencing solutions to judges, but in this case, the recommendation came from their boss, Harmeet Dhillon, the assistant attorney fundamental for civil rights.
In a court docket filing remaining week, Ms. Dhillon argued that after three trials – most productive certainly one of which ended with a conviction – in addition to the psychological stress of 5 years as a criminal defendant, any further time behind bars might perchance perchance be pointless and unfair.
The conviction “will practically certainly be certain that Defendant Hankison by no approach serves as a regulations enforcement officer again and have to aloof additionally possible be certain that he by no approach legally possesses a firearm again,” she wrote.
“Adding on top of these penalties a [lengthy] sentence … would, in the authorities’s think about, simply be unjust under these conditions,” she added.
Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call/AP
Harmeet Dhillon,
