Ex-cop found NOT GUILTY on all charges for shooting at neighbor’s house, Breonna Taylor

A FORMER police officer has been found not guilty and cleared of all charges for shooting at the home of Breonna Taylor’s neighbor.

Brett Hankison was not on trial for Taylor’s death. Instead, he was charged with firing bullets that went into an adjacent apartment, endangering a pregnant neighbor, her young child and her boyfriend.

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Hankison was fired by police in June 2020 and charged in September of that year with “endangerment” for wild and blind shooting at adjacent apartments during the raid.

The former narcotics detective testified about his actions in his defense on Wednesday during the police raid that killed 26-year-old Taylor.

Hankison said when a police battering ram broke down the 26-year-old’s door, a gun blast lit up the hallway of the apartment and his colleague fell into the doorway, wounded.

Hankison admitted shooting through Taylor’s patio door and bedroom window, but said he did it to save his colleagues.

Hankison said he believed someone had fired an automatic rifle at his colleagues.

When asked if he did anything wrong that night, he said, “Absolutely not.”

Prosecutors doubted that Hankison could see into Taylor’s front door when the first shot was fired.

“He was never in the door,” Barbara Maines Whaley told the jury in her closing argument.

“His wanton behavior could have multiplied a tragic death, BreonaTaylorhis wanton behavior could easily have tripled her death.”

“HE’S NOT A CRIMINAL”

Defense attorney Stewart Mathews said Hankison thought he was doing the right thing in what he believed was a shootout and that he is not a criminal who should be in prison.

“He did what he felt he needed to do in that moment. It all happened in such a short amount of time,” Mathews said.

Taylor, an emergency room attendant, was Shot dead by police at her home in Louisville, Kentucky on March when cops executed an arrest warrant at her home while she was sleeping with her Friend, Kenneth Walker.

Police said Walker shot her oncegiving them reason to shoot back, killing Taylor but failing to hit Walker.

Investigators later found that only one round was fired by Taylor’s friend, who said he thought an intruder was breaking in.

The other 32 bullets fired in the raid were from police.

Alongside Hankison, officers Jonathan Mattingly and Myles Cosgrove responded to the scene, which left Taylor dead.