One of the three police officers involved in the fatal shooting of Breonna Taylor in Louisville, Kentucky, is being fired, Mayor Greg Fischer announced Friday.
What We Know:
- The chief of the Louisville Metro Police Department (LMPD), Rob Schroeder, is initiating termination procedures against the officer, Brett Hankison, the mayor said in a statement.
- Fisher said that “unfortunately,” he and Schroeder could not talk about “what brought us to this moment, or even the timing of this decision,” because of a provision in state law. He added that he would like to see the law changed. Hankison was hired by the department in 2003.
- 26 year old Breonna Taylor, an African American emergency-room technician, was killed by police on March 13 after three plainclothes officers used a “no-knock” warrant to enter her apartment around 12:40 a.m. as part of a drug investigation. Taylor was shot eight times.
- According to his termination letter, which was released Friday by the police department, Hankison violated procedure when he “wantonly and blindly” fired 10 rounds into Taylor’s apartment while executing the warrant.
Please see the attached letter served to Detective Hankison this morning. We will have no additional statements on this matter. pic.twitter.com/XzAhEylEfk
— LMPD (@LMPD) June 19, 2020
- The letter signed by Chief Schroeder also said Hankison violated procedure by using deadly force without the “supporting facts” that it was directed at a person who posed an immediate threat.
- The Louisville Metro Council voted unanimously last Thursday to pass a ban on no-knock warrants, a measure known as “Breonna’s Law.”
- The FBI is also investigating Taylor’s death. Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron has said that he was asked to serve as a special prosecutor in the case. Separately, Louisville police are investigating allegations by at least two women that they were sexually assaulted by Hankison.
All allegations against Hankison were posted on social media this month, and they are similar, both women say they were sexually assaulted after he gave them rides home from a bar.
