'Thank God': Breonna Taylor's mother reacts to Brett Hankison guilty verdict

Tamika Palmer, the mother of Breonna Taylor, said she was "grateful" after a federal jury found a former police officer guilty of violating her daughter's civil rights during a botched police raid that left Taylor dead in the early morning of March 13, 2020.

"It took a lot of patience. It took a lot of time," Palmer said. "1,694 days it took. It was long, it was hard, it was — I don't know if I've got some words (other than) 'thank God.'"

Just feet away from the federal courthouse steps in Louisville, Palmer spoke of her reaction Friday to the highly anticipated verdict in the case against former Louisville Metro Police Detective Brett Hankison.

Federal prosecutors had charged Hankison with violating the civil rights of Taylor and three of her neighbors — Chelsey Napper, Cody Etherton and their young child — when he shot through a covered glass door into her apartment during the 2020 police raid. Taylor, a 26-year-old emergency medical technician, was fatally shot by police during the raid, though none of Hankison's bullets struck her or the neighbors.

A jury found Hankison guilty of violating Taylor's rights late Friday, following three days of deliberations in his second federal trial. The jury issued a partial verdict acquitting Hankison on the second count of violating the neighbors' rights earlier that evening, leading Palmer to say that justice wasn't "completely served."

"My heart goes out to Chelsey and her family because I definitely believe that they deserve justice," Palmer said, adding she hopes the partial verdict can bring them some peace.

An initial trial on the charges ended in a mistrial in November 2023.

As this year's jury deliberations stretched late into Friday night, Palmer said she began to feel "defeated."

"It's been a hard thing to trust in the system the whole time anyway," Palmer said. "And the later it got, the harder it got. I'm just glad to be on the other side."

Palmer said she felt immense gratitude to federal prosecutors as well as the 12 jurors who returned the verdict. In those final moments in the courtroom, many jurors were emotional, with some wiping tears away as the verdict was delivered.

Noting there was still a lot more work to be done, Taylor's family attorney Lonita Baker referenced the pending charges against Joshua Jaynes and Kyle Meany, former LMPD officers accused of offenses related to preparing and approving a false search warrant that led police to Taylor's door.

"The fight is not over," Baker said.

Hankison is set to be sentenced March 12. He faces a maximum sentence of life in prison.

Reach reporter Rachel Smith atrksmith@courierjournal.com or @RachelSmithNews on X, formerly known as Twitter.