This Cop Was Acquitted for His Role in the Breonna Taylor Raid. The Feds Are Prosecuting Him—Again.

A federal jury deadlocked Thursday in the trial of Brett Hankison, a former officer with the Louisville Metro Police Department who was charged with violating the civil rights of Breonna Taylor and her neighbors when he fired 10 shots during a March 2020 raid gone horribly wrong.

It's a trial that never should have happened.

That's not because Hankison's behavior was beyond reproach. Government employees are, unfortunately, rarely accountable to the communities they serve—a queasy sort of irony when considering they're employed by the taxpayer. But Hankison, who was terminated from the police department, was accountable to his community in March of last year when he was prosecuted in state court on three counts of wanton endangerment.