The Justice Department has recommended a sentence for the former police officer convicted of violating the civil rights of Breonna Taylor in the raid that killed her: a single day in prison.
Harmeet Dhillon, the Donald Trump-appointed Assistant Attorney General in charge of the DOJ Civil Rights division, asked a federal judge to hand down the sentence for ex-Louisville police officer Brett Hankison on Thursday.
Hankison was convicted in 2024 of violating Taylor’s civil rights for his role in the police raid in which two other officers fatally shot her. The charge carries a maximum sentence of life in prison. Hankison is set to be sentenced next week.
However, because Hankison did not directly fire either of the two shots that killed Taylor, Dhillon is suggesting he serve three years of supervised release.
Dhillon’s recommendation is a stark about-face from how the Justice Department had navigated Taylor’s killing under the Biden administration.
Just last year, the Biden-era Justice Department published a bombshell review finding that the Louisville Metro Police Department had a pattern of discrimination and abuse against the city’s Black residents.
However, Dhillon’s move is in line with the Trump administration’s larger efforts to dismantle Biden-era policies intended to hold local police departments accountable for misconduct.
In May, Dhillon halted federal probes into both the Louisville Metro Police Department, which had been involved in Taylor’s death, and the Minneapolis Police Department, which had been involved in the death of George Floyd.
At the time, Dhillon wrote in a press release, “Today, we are ending the Biden Civil Rights Division’s failed experiment of handcuffing local leaders and police departments with factually unjustified consent decrees.”
Just two days after taking office, Trump reversed a 2022 executive order intended to curb violent police practices. The order had placed strong restrictions on when federal police were permitted to use force, employ military equipment, and enter homes without knocking, and required the Department of Justice to create a national police misconduct database.
So far, Hankison is the only officer involved in Taylor’s killing to be convicted on civil rights charges. While he did not strike Taylor directly, prosecutors alleged his actions were catalysts for the botched raid that ended with two other officers, Myles Cosgrove and Jonathan Mattingly, fatally shooting the 26-year-old.
In March of 2020, Hankison fired 10 shots into Taylor’s Louisville apartment during a botched “no-knock” raid. Police had obtained the search warrant—which allowed them to enter Taylor’s home, but not to use deadly force—because they believed that Taylor was involved in an ex-boyfriend’s drug trafficking scheme.
The shots ultimately traveled through Taylor’s window, striking the walls of a neighboring apartment where a pregnant woman was asleep with her partner and child. However, Taylor’s boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, fired at police in response, hitting Mattingly in the leg. He later told investigators he had mistaken the shots for a home invasion.
Mattingly and Cosgrove returned fire, fatally shooting Taylor in the process. Taylor did not die until at least 20 minutes after she was shot, but never received medical attention.
Hankison was first tried on state charges for felony wanton endangerment, as prosecutors alleged he had blindly fired into Taylor’s apartment. He was acquitted in 2022, but indicted on federal civil rights charges in 2023.
Though his initial federal trial ended with a hung jury, Hankison was retried in 2024 and convicted on one count of violating Breonna Taylor’s civil rights. He was acquitted on two more charges of violating the civil rights of Taylor’s neighbors, whose home he struck.
Chelsey Napper, Taylor’s pregnant neighbor, sued Hankison, Cosgrove, and Mattingly, alleging their shots nearly struck her partner in the head. The suit has not yet been resolved.
As Hankison’s sentencing date approaches, Dhillon is arguing that prosecuting the former officer on civil rights charges was excessive to begin with.
Instead, Dhillon wrote to the judge that Hankison’s conviction alone is punishment enough, as it will “almost certainly ensure that [he] never serves as a law enforcement officer again.”
In the aftermath of the shooting, Taylor’s story became an emblem of the Black Lives Matter movement of 2020. Hankison was fired from the police department in June 2020.
Including Hankison, a total of four officers were ultimately indicted on federal charges for their involvement in Taylor’s killing.
Three of the officers, Kelly Goodlett, Joshua Jaynes, and Kyle Meany, were indicted on charges of conspiracy, obstruction of justice, and civil rights violations after prosecutors alleged they knowingly included false information in an affidavit when requesting the no-knock warrant from a judge.
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