LOUISVILLE, Ky. (Washington Insider Magazine) – The verdict of an ex-Louisville law enforcement officer accused of being involved in the disastrous drug raid that resulted in Breonna Taylor’s murder is upsetting her family and the demonstrators who marched in her honor for months.
Tamika Palmer, Taylor’s mother, and many other close relatives sat in on Brett Hankison’s court trial for many days in the hopes that the single person charged in the raid on March 13, 2020, would face criminal charges.
Palmer walked out of the courthouse quickly and quietly on Thursday after a jury found him not guilty of wanton endangerment counts.
Ju’Niyah Palmer, Taylor’s younger sister, questioned how Hankison could be exonerated of criminality.
The shooting and killing of Taylor loomed large over the 2-week trial, while the prosecution said it was not about her killing or the warrant that sent armed cops to her apartment, but rather the threat Hankison allegedly posed to neighbors when he shot into Taylor’s apartment. According to ABC NEWS, several of the many shots fired by Hankison from his revolver were stuck in the wall of the neighbors’ apartment.
Taylor’s only photo on display during the court trial was really a forensic scene exhibit of her motionless corpse at the end of a dark hall.
Along with the killings of George Floyd and Ahmaud Arbery, the outrage over her death and the procedure that brought armed cops to her house sparked large racial injustice rallies in the summer of 2020.
Demonstrators in Louisville have expressed their disappointment that no one has been prosecuted with Taylor’s killing, despite the fact that the white men who chased and killed Arbery, as well as the Minneapolis law enforcement officer who knelt down on Floyd’s neck, have been caught and convicted of charges.
Following the jury’s decision in the Hankison case, a small group of protestors organized a brief protest in Louisville on Thursday night, returning back to the public plaza where they had gathered for weeks in 2020.
Tamika Palmer stormed out of the court when Hankison declared on the witness box at the hearing that Taylor’s death was a tragedy and that “she didn’t need to die that night.” The next day, he was ruled not guilty of 3 counts of wanton endangerment, a misdemeanor punishable by 1 to 5 years in jail.