Brett Hankison, former officer convicted in Breonna Taylor case, to be sentenced today in federal court

A sentencing hearing is scheduled to take place Monday for Brett Hankison, a former Kentucky police officer who was convicted in the death of Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old emergency medical technician.

Taylor was shot and killed on March 13, 2020, during a botched drug raid authorized by the Louisville Metro Police Department. A Louisville detective at the time, Hankison, 46, was found guilty last November of violating Taylor's civil rights while executing a search warrant on her home, which resulted in the tragedy.

A federal jury in Louisville convicted Hankison on one count of civil rights abuse. He was accused of depriving Taylor of her constitutional rights when he, separate from other officers with him at the scene, used excessive force to fire multiple shots through a sliding glass door and window on the side of her building, despite both being covered by blinds and curtains.

The jury found that Hankison used a dangerous weapon when he committed the offense and that his actions involved an attempt to kill, although the shots he fired did not strike Taylor, the U.S. Department of Justice said after his conviction. He initially faced a second count for allegedly depriving Taylor's neighbors of their constitutional rights, as his bullets pierced through the walls and narrowly missed a family of three in the adjacent apartment, but jurors found him not guilty on that charge.

Hankison had pleaded not guilty to each of the charges. After his conviction, the Justice Department requested in a sentencing memo that he serve just one day in prison, followed by three years of supervised release, something civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who represents Taylor's family, called "an insult to the life of Breonna Taylor and a blatant betrayal of the jury's decision."