What followed in Taylor’s case was a gross lack of accountability and the uncovering of severe graft in the justice system, connected in a pattern of corruption and deceit. Until today, none of the three cops involved in her murder had been charged with her death.
And even today, only one officer was sentenced. While Hankison wasn’t one of the police officers who fired a killing shot, he did blindly shoot 10 rounds into her apartment, making him liable for violating Taylor’s rights with excessive force (a charge the federal jury convicted him of in 2024).
Now, the ex-cop will serve 33 months in prison. It’s not the one-day sentence the Department of Justice insultingly recommended last Thursday, but it’s little more than a slap on the wrist. And while it defied the Trump administration’s suggestion, it was just a fraction of the maximum sentence: life.
Civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who helped the family win a $12 million wrongful death settlement against the city of Louisville, said he wished Hankison had received more time but that, “we are grateful that he is at least going to prison and has to think for those 3 years about Breonna Taylor and that her life mattered.” Taylor’s boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, who was with her in the apartment the night of her death, also told reporters he was “grateful for the small piece of justice that we got.”
Unfortunately, today’s events reveal that in some ways, injustice will continue to prevail: One of the protesters arrested at the trial was Taylor’s aunt, Bianca Austin. Meanwhile, in 2023, Myles Cosgrove–who fired one of the fatal shots that night–was rehired by another county just miles away from Louisville (though his dismissal was upheld one year later by an appeals court). At a systemic level, the people killed by U.S. police officers continue to disproportionately affect Black people, according to data from Statista.
Breonna Taylor’s death was avoidable, a reflection of the true perils behind unchecked charge dismissals and false warrants. Louisville has made some institutional attempts to do better, such as banning no-knock warrants—still police reform in the U.S. has eons to go. Until then, “fuck all of y’all” indeed.
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