Kentucky’s attorney general’s office asked a judge this week to hold the trial of one of the officers involved in the Breonna Taylor shooting in Louisville, citing a “large and diverse” group of jurors, according to a report.
Ex-Det. Brett Hankison was accused of unbridled danger last September for shooting at an apartment close to Taylor’s and showing “extreme indifference to human life”. A man, a pregnant woman and a child were inside the apartment. He also shot at another empty apartment.
Taylor’s death became an integral part of the fight against police brutality and racial justice protests that swept the country last year, prompted by George Floyd’s death in police custody in Minneapolis last May, after a policeman knelt down – on your neck for several minutes.
Last month, Hankison’s lawyer, Stew Mathews, argued that his trial should take place in another county because he claimed that the former detective was portrayed negatively by the media, which could harm his jury and “irreparably harm” his chance of a fair trial, WDRB-TV in Louisville reported.
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Ex-Det. Brett Hankison was charged last fall with unbridled danger.
(Louisville Metropolitan Police Department)
He told Jefferson Circuit Court judge Ann Bailey Smith the “media circus” and portrayed his client in a “false and negative light”.
The request was denied by Attorney General Daniel Cameron’s office, saying that Matthews had not conclusively demonstrated “public opinion is so stimulated in the county as to prevent a fair trial” and noting that potential jurors will be questioned about potential bias before of the trial.
The Kentucky Supreme Court recently upheld a judge’s decision to maintain the trial in Jefferson County, adding that transferring it to another county would likely cause “suffering” for lay witnesses and victims, all of whom live in Louisville, the WDRB reported. .
Hankison and two other Louisville Metropolitan Police officers, McKenzie Mattingly and Myles Cosgrove, were involved in the fatal shooting of Taylor, a 26-year-old emergency technician, in his apartment on March 13, 2020, after an uninterrupted anti-drug operation. No drugs were found inside.
None of the officers were indicted for Taylor’s murder, sparking yet another wave of protests and criticism.
Taylor’s boyfriend Kenneth Walker fired a warning shot when the cops came in because he thought he and Taylor were being robbed, his lawyer said. The officers, who later said they had announced their entry, fired back, hitting Taylor. Walker shot one of the policemen in the leg.
FBI ballistics experts determined that one of Cosgrove’s bullets killed her.
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Jefferson County, which includes Lousiville, has the highest percentage of black residents in the state, around 22%, the WDRB reported, compared with less than 13% in all other counties in the state.