grand jury indicts one police officer
and there he's the only one facing
criminal charges six months after briana
taylor fatally shot by police in
kentucky
grand jury indicts that one officer
hankinson
he is an ex-detective by the way on
criminal charges
and the grand jury again we have not
heard after we heard from that judge we
have yet to hear from the kentucky
attorney general so we want to come
we want to kind of break this down but
also with respect
that there are more facts coming as well
one of my favorite people to go to
because of his experience on these
things is john yu
former deputy assistant attorney general
john thank you so much for being with me
today so
we don't have a whole lot of detail and
that judge didn't talk for a long time
and there were three people three
officers and including a sergeant
that were you know we didn't know who
would get charged or if anybody
would your first reaction to one officer
being charged
and as you can explain it to us as well
what you understand this will mean
it's great to be with you harris it
seems to me an appropriate
indictment from the grand jury you'll
notice that the judge was asking the
grand jury in the selection you were
playing there
about their understanding and what the
charges were
off detective former detective hankinson
is being charged
with murder it seems appropriate it
doesn't look like what we would call
first-degree murder
that he planned and went in to kill
someone with malice
but it sounds like it's something more
like although this is not what kentucky
calls is what we would generally call
second-degree murder that he was wanton
reckless
uh indifferent to the value of human
life i believe if you look at the facts
from the various investigations
detective hankinson was the one
who looks like he fired almost his full
clip throughout the room he i think he's
the one who fired 10 shots
into the room without really looking to
see who was in there if there was any
threat
the other two officers uh don't seem to
have fired
at that kind of rate so that actually
seems like an appropriate charge to me
also i might add the investigation might
not be over well
need to see what the attorney general
says but just because
officer hankinson has been charged with
uh second degree murder here
doesn't mean that the other two officers
are yet
off the hook the investigation may still
be continuing they could still be
charged with something else
yeah you know i don't know if you were
able to watch that zoom hearing that we
brought in virtually and
and they had sent out a link so that
widely people could watch it in the
public because they were trying to get
the information
out there john as quickly as possible to
people there
in kentucky they were bracing with the
national guard they weren't sure what
they would find here and this is
something we have seen
over the last few months this case six
months and 10 days old that people said
that they were waiting for justice in
that point
the judge at one point said in that
hearing at the very end
john i'm going to go off the record now
and that's kind of when i thought what
you're talking about might come into
play
is this really over completely for those
other two
officers that's a great question harris
it doesn't
need to be as you said uh they went off
the record which could have been
anything like where should we send the
grand jury now to the judge finding out
are you continuing your investigation
and deliberations i also want to say
it's very
smart wise that the government used the
grand jury here because i hope that
there won't be any kind of violent
protest that the community will be
accepting of this decision and
that's what the grand jury is rather
than having a prosecutor decide
the grand jury is randomly drawn from
the community to make these decisions we
like to think that the grand jury
represents the reasonable view
of the people who live there and i think
they made an appropriate decision not
that
hankinson's guilty but there's enough
information there to go forward with a
trial with a prosecution
and again as you say harris it very well
could be the case a grand jury continues
its investigation they may well
charge them with something else also let
me also say just because something's
not criminal doesn't mean something's
not wrong and as you know the
city here has already paid out 12
million dollars in a wrongful
death suit that's meant to make up for
the wrongness of what happened to ms
taylor
but criminal charges still might come
for the others as well but just
less something less than murder you know
john i am curious because we have it
up on the screen there three counts of
wanton
endangerment and you gave some of the
details from the no knock
warrant that that was issued and then
their entry into the apartment and shots
fired and
an estimation in your account of how
many that would have been
but when you hear that i i heard you say
second-degree murder when you hear
what what does it all mean how do these
charges break down how are they
different
and would a jury look and say and cherry
pick some of this or are some of them
tied together
every case is so different you're you're
exactly right and that's why
i think people should withhold judgment
until they see that's what the trial is
for to present
all these complicated facts as you said
harris there's also a lot of conflicting
eyewitness
testimony here there are some accounts
did the police actually knock
did they not did they announce
themselves did they not did
miss taylor's boyfriend mr walker fire
the first shot
i don't think that justifies firing off
a full clip by the police into a room
without looking into it
but you know that might alleviate some
of the guilt or some of the others other
than detective cancer we all got to see
that come out in the trial that's what
the trial
is is for but i think it's important to
realize just because there's a
difference between first degree and
second degree murder and how you prove
it it's still murder i think the
difference is did someone plan it out
with cold-blooded what we think called
malice of forethought that's first
degree
that doesn't seem to be the case here
but if their second-degree murder is on
this
at that moment in the circumstances did
someone act without regard to protecting
human life which is really the duty of
the police ultimately
did this person uh hear detective hansen
just start firing wildly without regard
to the safety of the people he's
supposed to be protecting
and that seems to be what the grand jury
thought i think that is the appropriate
charge here