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Nov. 2 (UPI) -- A jury found former Louisville police officer Brett Hankison guilty of violating Breonna Taylor's civil rights resulting in her death after deliberating for three days in the federal trial. The jury rendered its verdict Friday evening at the U.S. District Court for Western Kentucky in Louisville.
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Jurors initially could not reach a verdict, but the trial judge at 1 p.m. CDT Friday read the instructions for a hung jury, told them to try harder in their deliberations and said they had as much time as it would take.
The conviction is the first for any of the four Louisville police officers charged by the U.S. Department of Justice for violating Taylor's civil rights.
Taylor's mother, Tamika Palmer, addressed media on the courthouse steps following the verdict.
"The jurors took their time to really understand that Breonna deserved justice," Palmer told media. "Now, I just want people to keep saying Breonna Taylor's name."
Hankison has a sentencing hearing scheduled on March 12 and faces up to life in prison. He remains free until the sentencing.
Taylor, 26, was an emergency room technician and inside her apartment in southern Louisville when plainclothes officers conducting a narcotics investigation forcibly entered her apartment at 12:40 a.m. on March 13, 2020.
Three of the four officers returned fire after Walker fired one round from a handgun and shot Sgt. John Mattingly in the leg. Walker said he thought the officers were intruders.
The police officers said they announced themselves several times before they forcibly entered Taylor's apartment, but neighbors said they did not hear the officers announce they were the police.
Hankison was a 17-year-veteran of the Louisville Metro Police Department at the time of the raid and fired 10 rounds through a glass door and window into Taylor's apartment.
Three of the bullets passed through Taylor's apartment and entered an adjacent apartment containing a man, a pregnant woman and a 5-year-old were.
Taylor was shot and died from her wounds after the police officers opened fire.
None of the bullets Hankison fired struck Taylor, Walker or the people in the adjacent apartment.
The officers were serving a warrant related to a narcotics case, but neither Taylor nor Walker were subject to the search warrant.
The police searched the apartment and did not find any drugs.
Federal prosecutors charged Hankison with violating Taylor's civil rights and those of her three neighbors in the adjacent apartment.
The jury found Hankison innocent on the charge of violating Taylor's neighbors' civil rights.
An initial trial ended in a mistrial in 2023, and a state trial ended in Hankison's acquittal.
The second trial lasted for two weeks and included testimony from more than a dozen witnesses.
The other three police officers also are charged with violating Taylor's rights and await trial.
