LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — A former Louisville police detective’s actions were akin to a “drive-by shooting” when he fired 10 bullets into the side of his apartment the night Breonna Taylor was shot to death, federal prosecutors told a jury Wednesday. police.

Prosecutors argued in closing arguments that former detective Brett Hankison failed to see what he shot on the night of the 2020 raid. Federal retrial of Hankison. A jury of six men and six women began deliberating in the afternoon on two charges that Hankison’s shootings violated the civil rights of Taylor and her neighbors. The felonies carry a maximum sentence of life in prison if Hankison is convicted.

Hankison’s federal trial last year resulted in a mistrial The jury deadlocked after failing to reach a verdict. he was Acquitted in state trial in 2022 on charges of wanton endangerment.

Hankison, 48, started shooting after a police officer was hit by the bullet fired by Taylor’s boyfriend, who was in the apartment. Officers fired into the door, killing Taylor. When the shooting began, Hankison moved away from the door, rounded a corner and fired a volley of shots at Taylor’s sliding glass door and a window.

“The defendant violated one of the most basic rules of deadly force; if he cannot see the person he is shooting at, he cannot pull the trigger,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Songer said in his closing statement. Several officers and Louisville Police Chief Paul Humphrey testified during the lawsuit that officers should not have fired without identifying the target.

Hankison’s shots hit no one, but they flew into a neighbor’s apartment and nearly hit two people inside.

Hankison fired at opposite ends of the apartment unit “immediately, one after the other, like in a drive-by,” Songer said.

But Hankison’s lawyers painted a different picture of the night Taylor died, which led to months of protests against police brutality in 2020.

They said Hankison took action to save his fellow officers in a “very tense, very chaotic” situation that lasted about 12 seconds.

His attorneys emphasized that Hankison volunteered to assist in the raid that night, that lookouts were not told officers were not told there was more than one person in Taylor’s apartment, and that they were unaware that Taylor’s apartment shared a wall with another apartment. behind.

“This case is about Brett Hankison firing 10 shots that have never hit anyone,” his attorney, Don Malarcik, said during his closing argument. “Brett Hankison is accused of violating the constitutional rights of people he did not know and whose existence he did not know.”

Hankison testified earlier this week He said he believed a person armed with an AR-15 was shooting at officers from inside the apartment, and when he saw the gunshot flashing through the glass door and window on the side of the apartment, he moved out of the way and moved to return fire. unit. Another officer testified earlier in the week that the gunshots were the loudest he had ever heard.

But Taylor’s boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, had a handgun, not a rifle, and fired a single shot, hitting former Sgt. Jonathan Mattingly is on his leg. Mattingly and another officer at the door fired 22 shots, some of which hit Taylor. Malarcik said Mattingly was struck in the femoral artery and was 90 seconds from death before other officers treated him at the scene.

Malarcik said Hankison “did exactly what he was supposed to do.” “He was acting to save lives.”

Mattingly testified earlier this week that he saw a person holding a gun at the end of the hallway before the shooting. Walker later told police he thought an intruder had broken in when police broke down the door.

Hankison was one of them four police officers were arrested In 2022, a lawsuit was filed by the US Department of Justice for violations of Taylor’s civil rights. The two charges against him carry a maximum sentence of life imprisonment if convicted. Three other former officers charged were involved in drafting the search warrant.