The trial for a former Kentucky police officer charged with federal civil rights offenses for firing 10 times into Breonna Taylor's home was pushed back nearly a year during a hearing on Wednesday, CBS-affiliated station WLKY reported.
Taylor, a 26-year-old emergency medical technician, was sleeping when Louisville officers rammed through her door and opened fire, killing her. The officers have maintained they were responding to a shot from Kenneth Walker, Taylor’s boyfriend, that injured Sgt. Jonathan Mattingly in the leg. Walker described his shot as a "warning" shot he fired at what he thought was an intruder breaking into Taylor’s home. Instead, it was former Officer Brett Hankison and other officers sent to her home to execute a no-knock search warrant for someone already in police custody.
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Both the defense for Hankison and the prosecution said they need more time to analyze more than 60,000 items in discovery, including video footage and a DNA sample Hankison finally agreed to provide as a requirement of his release. His trial date, originally set for Oct. 13, will now be Aug. 21, 2023, WLKY reported.
Hankison is accused of “firing his service weapon into Taylor’s apartment through a covered window and covered glass door,” although it was Detective Myles Cosgrove’s bullet that killed Taylor.
He, former Sgt. Jonathan Mattingly, and ex-Officer Kelly Goodlett were also charged federally in the incident, though Goodlett wasn’t on the scene of the shooting. She pleaded guilty to helping falsify the warrant to get into Taylor’s home and filing a false report to cover it up.
In a plea agreement obtained by TIME Magazine, Goodlett admitted that detectives relied on their "gut feeling" that a warrant should be obtained. "The detectives, knowing that they needed actual evidence, rather than just a gut feeling, to get a warrant, attempted to find evidence supporting this gut belief," the document signed by Goodlett read.
Hankison was the only officer charged by state prosecutors in the shooting, and a Kentucky court acquitted Hankison on the charges accusing him of endangering Taylor's neighbors in the process of firing through the medical worker’s home.
Civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who represents Taylor’s family, told the Newsy media source he’s “certain” Hankison’s attorneys will try to bring up the acquittal in the federal case. “However, we must remember that was a whole different charge, a different standard, and for certain was a different prosecution,” Crump said.
He referenced scrutiny Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron’s office faced from grand jury members who said they kept waiting on prosecutors to bring up the bullets that went into Taylor’s body, “not just bullets that went into walls.”
Watch parts of Hankison’s testimony in the state case:
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