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Brett Hankison is the only police officer involved in the deadly raid against Breonna Taylor to be sentenced to prison. And while the United States Probation Office recommended 11-14 years, the Department of Justice recently asked U.S. District Judge Rebecca Grady Jennings for one day of incarceration. Neither sentence ended up happening.
Unlike the other officers, Hankison’s 10 shots punctured a neighboring wall, missing “a sleeping baby by about two feet.” While the DOJ clung to its last-minute recommendation, Taylor’s mother was “heartbroken and angry.”
Ultimately, Jennings sentenced Hankison to three years. But is that enough? What is? Last year, Breonna Taylor’s boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, was ruled responsible for her death. Her aunt, Bianca Austin, was arrested for “disorderly conduct” alongside other protesters awaiting Hankison’s sentence.
Police have killed thousands more since Taylor, brutalizing and injuring hundreds of thousands. There isn’t a quantifiable number of years in prison that could rectify this ongoing violence.
The only thing that stopped Brett Hankison’s bullets from killing someone else was luck. How many more officers, amid a national gun violence crisis, have benefited from that? This case sends the message that violence, whether accidental or intentional, is acceptable when inflicted by cops. That message is wrong. Punishing one officer does not prevent police violence—which took place right outside Hankison's hearing. The system itself must be dismantled.