The Louisville Courier-Journal is reporting today that one of the police officers involved in the Breonna Taylor killing will be terminated.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Mayor Greg Fischer announced Friday that Louisville Metro Police is initiating termination of Officer Brett Hankison, one of three LMPD officers to fire weapons on March 13 at Breonna Taylor's apartment, killing her.
Hankison is accused by the department's interim chief, Robert Schroeder, of "blindly" firing 10 rounds into Taylor's apartment, creating a substantial danger of death and serious injury.
"I find your conduct a shock to the conscience," Schroeder wrote in a Friday letter to Hankison laying out the charges against him. "I am alarmed and stunned you used deadly force in this fashion."
"The result of your action seriously impedes the Department's goal of providing the citizens of our city with the most professional law enforcement agency possible. I cannot tolerate this type of conduct by any member of the Louisville Metro Police Department," he added. "Your conduct demands your termination."
The article doens’t go into why it is taking so long for this. Mayor Fischer says that he and the new chief cannot talk about the process without violating some state law. He doesn’t even say which law it is or what the law says. This has always been Fischer’s touch stone for dealing with the Breonna Taylor killing. Fine. If there is some process for investigating and terminating a police officer, Fischer needs to explain that to the public. But to this date, all I get is there is a process that he cannot violate. And this leads me and a lot of other people to think, “Fischer is dragging his feet.”
Even the local paper says that Fischer should have fired the previous police chief before the Breonna Taylor killing. But we had to have Taylor be killed and protests in the streets before Fischer got off his ass and fired the previous chief. Basically, Fischer did not want to piss off the higher up cops, even though from what I gather morale was low in the police department before the Taylor killing.
And as I have written before, even Governor Andy Beshear is pissed at how Fischer has mishandled the killing of Breonna Taylor. It should not take months. But she was shot to death in March and we are heading to July.