Brett Hankison to take the stand in trial connected to the fatal Breonna Taylor raid
By Steve Almasy and Aaron Cooper, CNN
(CNN) -- The former Louisville detective whose bullets went through Breonna Taylor's apartment and into her neighbors' unit is expected to testify at his trial Wednesday.
The prosecution rested Tuesday after jurors heard from 26 witnesses, including two of Taylor's neighbors.
Brett Hankison is facing charges of wanton endangerment because, during the drug raid on the 26-year-old woman's apartment, he fired 10 shots -- allegedly blindly -- endangering a man, woman and child next door, according to Kentucky Assistant Attorney General Barbara Whaley.
Defense lawyers indicated Hankison's testimony would take an hour and the prosecution cross-examination is expected to take less than an hour.
Closing arguments might come as early as Thursday morning.
On March 13, 2020, Taylor was in bed with her boyfriend, Kenneth Walker III, when police officers with a search warrant battered down the front door. Walker fired a shot at the officers, who he says he thought were intruders.
That triggered a volley of fire from the officers. Taylor, who was standing in a hallway with Walker, was shot multiple times. Walker was not injured.
Whaley said in her opening statement that Hankison fired into Taylor's home and the bullets went through apartment 4 into apartment 3.
"This case is about Cody (Etherton) and his partner Chelsea (Napper), who was seven months pregnant at the time, and their 5-year-old son, who was sleeping in the bedroom closest to the front door when the bullets ripped through the apartment and out their sliding glass door, into the night," the prosecutor said.
Prosecutors early in the trial played an interview with Hankison that was recorded March 25, 2020.
Hankison described being in the breezeway at the apartment door with other officers and looking inside the unit when he saw a muzzle flash and thought someone was shooting at them with an AR-15-style rifle.
Hankison said he retreated from the tight breezeway to the parking lot and started firing.
The defense, in its opening statement, said the veteran officer responded appropriately during a chaotic situation that he saw as a threat to himself and others.
During the interview played in court, Hankison is heard saying: "I was almost under the impression at the time they were all being sprayed with bullets. I had already seen where the threat was. ... He was straight ahead as the door came open, he was all the way back in that hallway. I returned fire at the angle that I believed him to still be shooting from because I could see the muzzle flashes."
He said he fired through a glass door and a window with his pistol and when he did so the threat stopped.
"I thought the guy was actually advancing, by the last shot I heard, that he was advancing toward us," he said. "And I felt pretty helpless, like there is no way we can challenge this guy with an assault rifle."
"I kind of felt they were sitting ducks," he said, referring to the officers.
Hankison said he continued to cover the windows and the sliding glass doors as other officers helped Sgt. Jonathan Mattingly, who was wounded by Walker's shot.
Several prosecution witnesses have testified only one gun was found in the apartment -- Walker's legally owned 9 mm. Other officers have testified they didn't fire because they couldn't locate a target.
Napper, Taylor's neighbor, testified that the family went to bed around 10 or 10:30 p.m., but she woke up suddenly.
"It seemed like a bomb," she said of a loud noise she later learned was a ram with gunshots "all together."
"I just froze for a second, and I think he (Etherton) said our apartment was getting shot up," she testified. "He said there was bullets flying everywhere."
Hankison was fired three months after the raid.
Mattingly and the officer who the FBI determined fired the shot that killed Taylor -- former Louisville Metro Police Det. Myles Cosgrove -- asserted his Fifth Amendment rights and won't testify at the trial.
Cosgrove's lawyer cited a federal investigation into Taylor's death as a reason he would not testify. The jury did watch several hours of a recorded deposition Cosgrove gave for a civil claim from Walker.
Each count against Hankison carries a one- to five-year prison term, according to the indictment.
Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron declined to file any charges in Taylor's death.
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