It was over five years ago that Breonna Taylor, then 26 years old, was killed tragically, senselessly, and now, finally, there is a glimmer of accountability. Former Louisville police officer Brett Hankison has also been sentenced to 33 months in prison for violating Taylor’s civil rights during the ill-fated no-knock search warrant that took her life.
The sentence, which a judge handed down on July 21, follows a November conviction in which a jury found Hankison guilty of reckless conduct that violated Taylor’s constitutional rights. And one of the first times in this long and painful story that a former involved officer will face federal consequences for his actions.
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Taylor’s family still feels they can’t ignore the overall context and failings of the justice system, even though the sentence itself is a symbolic victory. Citing the family’s psychologists, their lawyers said in a statement: “While today’s sentence is not what we had hoped for, nor does it fully reflect the severity of the harm caused. It is more than what the Department of Justice sought. “That, in itself, is a statement.” The gravity of that moment was underscored by Taylor’s mother, Tamika Palmer, who demanded a sentence that conformed to federal guidelines. While the court’s ruling didn’t reach the family’s threshold, it still served as grim recognition that civil rights violations, even at the hands of law enforcement, must be remedied with real consequences.
This sentence does not reverse the injustice of March 13, 2020, when Taylor was fatally shot in her own apartment. But it inches her closer toward acknowledgment and reckoning. Taylor’s family legal team reiterated their disappointment in the Department of Justice, accusing it of falling short in its obligation to fully defend the rights of Black women and provide meaningful justice. As the nation watches, the 33-month sentence imposed on Brett Hankison is not so much a sense of closure as it is a reminder that accountability, no matter how overdue and incomplete, must still be at the center of the quest for justice for Breonna Taylor and others.
