The trial of Brett Hankison, a former Louisville officer, will start Wednesday morning with opening statements by lawyers. Hankison was charged with wanton danger for entering the apartment of Taylor’s neighbor on the night in March 2020. A few months later, he was fired. Taylor was killed by Hankison’s shots.
On Tuesday, attorneys selected the final 15 jurors out of a pool that included 48. Three of the 15 jurors will be alternate jurors.
Half of the remaining 48 prospective jurors were interviewed by lawyers in the courtroom on Tuesday morning. In the afternoon, the second group went through a similar question-and-answer session. Eight jurors were chosen for jury service from the afternoon group, seven of them men and one woman. Seven other jurors were selected from the morning session. They will be notified by phone that they have been chosen.
Initial court officials gathered a larger pool of 250 potential jurors to reflect the public outcry surrounding Taylor’s death. After four days of individual interviewing, 48 people were chosen from that large pool.
Taylor, a 26 year-old Black woman working as an emergency medical technician was shot multiple times in a botched drug raid on March 13, 2020. Louisville officers broke into Taylor’s home with a warrant for narcotics and opened fire on Taylor’s boyfriend who believed an intruder was entering. Taylor was killed by two officers who fired back at Taylor.
Jonathan Mattingly (ex-Louisville police detective) was one of the officers that shot Taylor. He invoked his Fifth Amendment privilege to avoid testifying at the trial because of a federal investigation. Instead, jurors will hear portions of Mattingly’s video deposition in a civil lawsuit.
It is expected that the trial will last approximately two weeks.
