In November 2024, the identical month all of us discovered President Donald Trump can be occupying the Oval Workplace once more, Brett Hankison, a former Louisville police officer who was fired over his involvement within the lethal raid on the house of Breonna Taylor, was discovered responsible of 1 rely of civil rights abuse for taking pictures into Taylor’s bed room window, “which was lined by blinds and a blackout curtain,” The Guardian famous, which means, above all the opposite wrongs cops dedicated that night time, they had been firing blindly with out obvious concern for who they could hurt.
Hankison is because of be sentenced on Monday. He faces a most sentence of life in jail. Now, if what has handed for “justice” through the battle to carry Taylor’s killers accountable to this point is any indication, Hankison was by no means going to obtain something near a life sentence, but when the MAGA-fied U.S. Division of Justice has its approach, he received’t do greater than a single day.
From the Guardian:
Hankison’s bullets pierced the residence subsequent door, the place a pair with a five-year-old youngster lived. None of his photographs hit Taylor, her boyfriend Kenneth Walker, who was within the room, or her neighbors, investigators discovered.
In a 16 July sentencing memorandum, Assistant Lawyer Common for civil rights Harmeet Ok Dhillon and senior counsel Robert J Keenan mentioned that as a result of Hankison didn’t shoot anybody and has a clear document in any other case, he ought to solely serve three years of supervised launch. It additionally mentioned that Hankison has suffered psychological stress from the trials. The justice division didn’t reply to a request for remark.
The memo mentioned that “there is no such thing as a want for a jail sentence to guard the general public from the defendant or to supply ‘simply’ punishment or deterrence.”
The memorandum additionally argued that he was first tried in 2023, ending in a mistrial, and that he was acquitted of a second cost of violating the neighbors’ civil rights.
“The federal government respects the jury’s verdict, which is able to nearly definitely be certain that defendant Hankison by no means serves as a legislation enforcement officer once more and also will probably be certain that he by no means legally possesses a firearm once more,” the memo mentioned.
So, the DOJ really helpful Hankison serve a 24-hour sentence adopted by three years of supervised launch — whereas ensuring to painting the shooter as a sufferer himself, because of his “psychological stress,” not from serving to to take Taylor’s life whereas placing different harmless lives, together with a 5-year-old’s, in instant hazard.
Thoughts you, this similar Justice Division, in Might, made the resolution to finish Biden-era police-accountability agreements with Minneapolis and Louisville that got here because of intensive investigations following the police killings of Taylor and George Floyd. As I famous beforehand, that call was made “simply sooner or later after it was introduced that the exact same DOJ authorised a virtually $5 million settlement for the household of Ashli Babbitt—the Jan. 6 Capitol rioter who received herself shot and killed by a Capitol police officer, Lt. Michael Byrd, whereas climbing over a barricade contained in the Capitol constructing that rioters had been warned to not breach.”
Since Trump’s return to workplace, the DOJ has made a transparent agenda out of undermining Black civil rights progress, from its blind, propaganda-reliant struggle on DEI to its battle towards police reform to its reversal of settlement agreements for Black People who’ve been harmed by systemic racism. Its give attention to white grievance and gutting of instances involving civil rights protections for Black folks is why the DOJ just lately noticed a mass exodus of greater than 100 attorneys who resigned from its civil rights division.
Making America nice once more means, partly, making white nationalism nice once more by pretending systemic racism doesn’t exist, and the Trump administration retains that pretense up by doing its finest to function a perpetual roadblock in the best way of racial justice.
Unhappy.
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