He stood in the courtroom, not in defiance, but in something resembling regret. Former officer Brett Hankison, once at the heart of a deadly no-knock raid in Louisville, apologized quietly to the family and friends of Breonna Taylor — the woman whose name became a rallying cry for justice across the United States.
“If I had known what I know now about that warrant,” Hankison said, “I never would have fired my gun.”
But knowing came too late.
Hankison, previously acquitted on state charges in 2022, was in federal court to be sentenced for violating Taylor’s civil rights during that chaotic night. Yet the Justice Department’s recent stance raised more than a few eyebrows — and blood pressure.
Their sentencing memo read like a quiet absolution. It emphasized Hankison “did not shoot Ms. Taylor and is not otherwise responsible for her death,” painting his role as peripheral, his responsibility diluted. What made the memo even more conspicuous was not just what it said — but who said it.
The document lacked the signatures of career prosecutors who had brought the case forward. Instead, it bore the names of political appointees: Harmeet Dhillon, tapped by Trump to head the Civil Rights Division, and her counsel Robert Keenan. Keenan, notably, had previously lobbied for leniency in a separate civil rights abuse case involving a sheriff’s deputy in Los Angeles.
This move wasn’t a one-off. It’s part of a pattern.
Earlier this year, Dhillon shelved a pending court-approved agreement aimed at reforming the Louisville Police Department. She also rescinded earlier federal findings of systemic racial abuses. In effect, the DOJ’s once-assertive stance on police reform appears to be softening under new leadership, raising alarms among civil rights advocates and Taylor’s family alike.
For those who loved Breonna Taylor, the sentencing recommendation felt like salt in an open wound. Her family’s attorneys called it an insult — not only to her memory, but to the movement that her death helped galvanize.
All eyes now turn to the bench. In the face of a diluted prosecution and political backpedaling, will the judge be the one to deliver something that still resembles justice?
