It was the second day of testimony in the retrial of former Louisville Metro Police detective Brett Hankison on Tuesday. Federal prosecutors called five witnesses, including a ballistics expert and a police training instructor, to address Hankison’s role in the fatal police raid on 26-year-old emergency room technician Breonna Taylor’s apartment on March 13, 2020.
Sgt. Jason Vance testified that he was the lead investigator for the fatal shooting at Taylor’s apartment, under LMPD’s Public Integrity Unit, which looks at potential criminal violations by officers.
Louisville police executed a search warrant that led to a late-night raid on Taylor’s apartment. The warrant — which was later shown to have included falsified information — claimed a link between Taylor and a known drug dealer in the area.
Vance said investigators did not find any drugs nor large sums of money in Taylor’s apartment.
During the police raid, Hankison fired five shots through a bedroom window and another five through a sliding glass door at Taylor’s home. Both the window and the glass door were covered, obscuring the view inside, at the time.
Prosecutors alleged that Hankison couldn’t see anything through the window or glass door and fired blindly into the apartment from the parking lot.
Hankison testified in his state trial in 2022 that he saw a person with a rifle inside after police broke down the front door.
In this case, he is facing two federal felony charges for allegedly violating the civil rights of Taylor and others. If convicted, he could be sentenced to a maximum of life in prison.
But Vance testified that investigators did not find a rifle in the apartment the night of the raid. He said they found a handgun that legally belonged to Taylor’s boyfriend, Kenneth Walker.
Walker fired a single shot at officers when they entered the apartment, striking one in the leg. He later said he believed they were intruders. Officers returned fire, repeatedly striking Taylor and killing her.
Hankison said in previous testimony that he didn’t see anyone when he moved to the side of Taylor’s apartment and shot through the window and glass door. He also said he fired in the opposite direction of where he thought he saw a person with a rifle shooting at officers.
On Tuesday, Vance said all LMPD officers are required to learn “target identification” and “target isolation” at the police academy. He said officers are taught that they must be able to see a person before they draw their weapon and have a clear shot if they decide to shoot.
Vance testified Tuesday, that shooting without target identification and target isolation can be dangerous and could put many people’s lives at risk.
The defense argued Tuesday that Hankison was following LMPD’s use of deadly force policy the night of the raid, which states the use of deadly force is allowed if an officer perceives a threat based on what they know at the scene.
Federal prosecutors argued that Hankison was not allowed to shoot unless he had target identification and target isolation.
In last year’s federal trial, which ended in a mistrial after the jury could not reach a unanimous verdict, LMPD’s Paul Humphrey, who was recently named chief of the department, testified that officers are not trained to shoot blindly at a threat or suspect.
On Tuesday, former Louisville SWAT commander Brent Routzahn testified that it's extremely dangerous to use deadly force without target identification or isolation. Routzahn said target identification and isolation is “a basic practice.”
As commander, Routzahn said he led many “active shooter response courses” and “use of deadly force trainings” for officers. Federal prosecutors showed records that Hankison took Routzhan’s active shooter course in June 2013.
If there is an active shooter, officers are trained to enter the building to find the threat, Routzahn testified.
Hankison previously testified in federal court that he understood how target identification and target isolation is important to the safety of others.
Michael Van Arsdale, an FBI ballistics expert, testified that he was called to “reconstruct” the scene at Taylor’s apartment about three months after the raid.
Federal prosecutors showed the floor plan of Taylor’s apartment marked with yellow dots to indicate the bullet holes throughout the apartment.
Van Arsdale said he was able to track the trajectory of Hankison’s bullets. One bullet went through the bedroom window, through a utility closet and into one of the bathrooms in the apartment, he said.
Some of Hankison’s bullets went into a neighboring apartment where Chelsey Napper, her boyfriend and her young son were sleeping. Federal prosecutors showed the jury a piece of the blind from the neighboring apartment with a bullet hole.
Napper testified Monday that she and her family were diagnosed with PTSD after the incident.
Prosecutors also called an upstairs neighbor, who hadn’t testified in either of Hankison’s previous trials. She said she thought she heard knocking at the door, but later realized the knocking was actually gunfire.
She explained she was terrified and had no idea what was going on. She said she heard Walker screaming for help in a panic.
“I get triggered by a lot of different things. I have trauma from it. I lose sleep. I’m scared of nighttime. It’s debilitating on some days,” she said, sobbing on the stand.
The trial is expected to continue Wednesday.
