Brett Hankison said he believed the Louisville officers who raided Breonna Taylor’s apartment were taking fire from an AR-15 rifle
Hankison said as much to investigators about two weeks after his fellow officers fatally shot Taylor during a nighttime raid of the Black woman's apartment. A recording of the interview was played at Hankison's wanton endangerment trial in Louisville on Thursday.
The narcotics detective was fired a few months later. Hankison was not charged in Taylor's shooting death, but some bullets he fired through Taylor's sliding glass door and bedroom window went into a neighbor's apartment, coming close to striking a man inside. Police officials who dismissed him said he fired “blindly” into Taylor's apartment.
Sgt. Jason Vance with Louisville's public integrity unit conducted the interview with Hankison, and testified Thursday that a thorough search of Taylor's apartment turned up no illegal drugs or long guns. Describing ballistics evidence on Wednesday, he noted a single bullet from Taylor's boyfriend's handgun, and many shell casings from the officers' weapons.