A grand jury indicted former officer Brett Hankison “on charges of wanton endangerment in the first degree” in the shooting death of Breonna Taylor.
A witness corroborated that it was not a no-knock warrant.
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The charge is a Class D Felony, one to five years in prison. He has a $15,000 bond:
A Kentucky grand jury has cleared current and former police officers in the shooting death of Breonna Taylor — indicting one ex-cop for “wantonly” firing shots into another apartment the night she died.The 12 jurors returned three counts of wanton endangerment in the first degree against Brett Hankison for shooting his gun into an apartment next to Taylor’s. Occupants of that residence were identified by their initials in charges — and none of them were “BT.”
The Kentucky penal code states that “a person is guilty of wanton endangerment in the first degree when, under circumstances manifesting extreme indifference to the value of human life, he wantonly engages in conduct which creates a substantial danger of death or serious physical injury to another person.”
Det. Cosgrove shot the bullet that killed Taylor. But the attorney general said Cosgrove and Sgt. Mattingly “were justified in their shooting.”
From The New York Times:
The three-count indictment concerns Brett Hankison, a detective at the time, who fired into the sliding glass patio door and window of Ms. Taylor’s apartment building, both of which were covered with blinds, in violation of a department policy that requires officers to have a line of sight. He is the only one of the three officers who was dismissed from the force, with a termination letter stating that he showed “an extreme indifference to the value of human life.”The decision came after more than 100 days of protests and a monthslong investigation into the death of Ms. Taylor, a 26-year-old emergency room technician who was shot five times in the hallway of her apartment by officers executing a search warrant.Because the officers did not shoot first — it was the young woman’s boyfriend who opened fire; he has said he mistook the police for intruders — many legal experts had thought it unlikely the officers would be indicted.
Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer issued a curfew from 9PM to 6:30AM ahead of the announcement.
People already began boarding up businesses and federal buildings began other preparations in case of riots tonight.
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