Brett Hankison, Ex-Louisville Cop, Cries as He Recounts Jonathan Mattingly Getting Shot in Breonna Taylor Raid

One of the policemen of the Louisville Metro who broke into Breonna Taylor’s apartment in 2020 and shooting happened in the witness stand on Wednesday as he recalled watching his colleague get shot in the leg.

Former officer Brett Hankison was the only police officer to be brought to trial after the failed raid but not for charges related to Taylor’s Death; he was unjustly accused of shooting 10 times into a neighboring apartment building, allegedly endangering a pregnant woman, her partner, and their 5-year-old son.

Hankison choked up several times on Wednesday as he described seeing his friend, Sgt. Jonathan Mattingly, fell to the floor next to him and said “I got hit” or “I’m coming down.”

Not long ago, police entered Taylor’s apartment under a “no-door” order related to the drug investigation into Taylor’s ex-boyfriend. As they began flashing the muzzle of the gun in the pitch-black apartment, Hankison said he could see a shadowy figure in the hallway in a “shooting position” holding what he thought was a gun. rifle.

When Mattingly was hit, Hankison said he immediately backed out of the apartment and began shooting through the glass window towards the glowing muzzle of the gun. “I know Sergeant Mattingly has fallen and I know they are trying to reach him and I see that they are being executed with this rifle,” he said as he held back tears.

“I felt helpless knowing that I had a shotgun in the face of rifle fire,” he added.

He described calling for help when Mattingly was dragged out of the apartment with a leg injury. Meanwhile, Taylor lay dead in an interior hallway.

Taylor’s boyfriend, Kenny Walker, a legal gun owner, later said he fired a warning shot when plainclothes officers barged in, assuming they were intruders. The three officers returned fire with 32 shots.

Hankison was fired a month later for showing “extreme indifference to the value of human life” when he shot through the doors and windows of Taylor’s apartment with his eyes closed. But national outrage over Taylor’s death only increased when the grand jury refused to convict Hankison, Mattingly and Myles Cosgrove for killing Taylor.

Last week, a neighbor, Cody Etherton, recounted the horrifying moment bullets ripped through his apartment while his family was asleep. He first thought someone was breaking into their home so he ran to the door to “protect his family,” he said. But when he got to the door, he was hit in the face by a piece of drywall as a bullet flew over his head. Prosecutors said at least three bullets entered the apartment, shattering the sliding glass door.

“O ne or two more inches, I will be shot. My son will never see me and I will never see my son,” Etherton testified, adding that he had to crawl back to his partner in his bedroom when the sound of the sound came. The gun continued to ring. “It’s very chaotic.”

Hankison testified Wednesday that officers were told during a briefing before the raid that Taylor would be home alone.