On Friday afternoon, several prominent local activists — including mayoral candidate Shameka Parrish Wright — spoke at Jefferson Square Park, the day after a jury found former LMPD detective Brett Hankison not guilty on all three counts of wanton endangerment for his actions during the botched LMPD raid that killed Breonna Taylor.
Several activists talked about their disappointment with Hankison’s verdict, as well as being effective in reorganizing, and the social justice work that has been done across the city since 2020.
Several activists also spoke at Jefferson Square on Thursday after Hankison was acquitted, and then a group of about 50 protesters marched through the streets downtown, at times walking through Fourth Street Live and on Broadway.
Hankison was charged with three counts of wanton endangerment from shots he fired during the March 13, 2020 LMPD raid that killed Taylor. His charges were not for her death, but rather for shots he fired that went into a neighboring apartment where three people were present. On June 19, 2020, it was announced that LMPD would fire Hankison. A termination letter from then-acting chief Robert Schroeder said Hankison’s actions during the raid “displayed an extreme indifference to the value of human life” when he “blindly fired ten rounds” into Breonna Taylor’s apartment. Schroeder added that the patio door and window which Hankison fired through were covered in a material that “completely prevented” Hankison from identifying a target.
