A former police officer in the US state of Kentucky was found guilty of violating the civil rights of Breonna Taylor, a woman who was killed in her own home during a botched raid in 2020.

Brett Hankison, 47, could face life in prison after being found guilty of using excessive force on a 26-year-old black nursing student.

However, the jury also found Taylor not guilty of the charge of violating the human rights of one of his neighbors.

Although he did not fire the gun that killed Taylor, Hankison fired 10 times into Taylor’s apartment to protect his fellow officers when her boyfriend opened fire when officers broke down the front door.

This was Hankison’s third trial, but the first time he was convicted of a crime related to the deadly raid on March 13, 2020.

Hankison was the first of the four officers charged in Taylor’s death to appear before a jury.

Another former police officer, Kelly Goodlett, pleaded guilty to falsifying a search warrant for Taylor’s home.

Federal charges against the remaining two officers were dismissed by a judge earlier this year. The US justice department recently indicted the duo on new charges.

Taylor was killed after plainclothes police executed a “no-knock” search warrant at his home. In the early hours of the morning, she and her boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, broke into her apartment while she was sleeping.

Authorities believed Taylor was using her ex-boyfriend’s home to hide narcotics.

Walker fired a single shot when the officers broke down the door because he thought they were intruders and not identifying themselves as police.

Another officer fired the shot that killed Taylor, but prosecutors said Walker was justified in using deadly force because he opened fire first, hitting a colleague of Hankison.

Hankison’s bullets did not hit anyone, but they entered a neighboring property where a family was sleeping, prosecutors said.

A subsequent police report contained errors, including listing Taylor’s injuries as “none” and saying no force was used to gain entry when the battering ram was used.

Taylor’s name became a slogan during the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests.

Hankison was fired from the Louisville Metro Police Department in June 2020.

His previous federal trial last year ended in a mistrial after the jury told the judge it could not reach a unanimous verdict.

He was previously tried by a Kentucky state jury in March 2022 and was acquitted of three counts of wanton endangerment.

Taylor’s family and Walker received payments from the city in connection with the incident.

A series of police reforms have also been initiated in Louisville.