(Headline USA) The lone Kentucky detective facing charges related to the fatal shooting of Breonna Taylor pleaded not guilty Monday.
Brett Hankison’s plea comes five days after a grand jury indicted him on three counts of wanton endangerment for firing into the home of Taylor’s neighbors.
If convicted, he could face up to five years in prison on each count.
Hankison’s lawyer asked that his client be allowed to keep firearms for self-defense, saying Hankison, who was fired in June, “has received a number of threats.”
The grand jury declined to charge Hankison or the other two undercover narcotics officers who opened fire inside Taylor’s house with her shooting. The decision not to charge the officers set off protests in Louisville and across the country.
On Monday, Louisville’s mayor lifted the curfew put in place after people refused to end their nighttime protests. Mayor Greg Fischer’s statement said the 9 p.m. curfew had served its purpose.
“We sadly saw some violence, including the shooting of two police officers, one of whom remains hospitalized, dealing with complications of his injuries. But we believe the curfew helped, by ensuring fewer people were out late in the day,” Fischer said.
Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, a Democrat, falsely claimed that the protests were largely peaceful, with a few people taking advantage of the situation to commit violence.
“Let me say this, 99.99% of people that took to the streets or the sidewalks did so peacefully, raised their voices to be heard and we should listen. We should listen to the trauma and to the pain,” Beshear said.
Meanwhile, Kentucky state Rep. Lisa Willner, a Louisville Democrat, said Monday that she’s starting to craft legislation that would narrow the scope of the state’s rioting statute.
Her proposal, which she intends to offer in next year’s legislative session, would protect people from being charged with first-degree rioting if they’re present but don’t engage in destructive or violent actions.
Her response comes after Democratic state Rep. Attica Scott was charged with the felony last week while participating in Louisville protests for racial justice.
Police said Scott was in a group whose members damaged buildings and set fire to a library.
“This is not any attempt at all to weaken the current law,” Willner claimed in a phone interview. “It’s just to make sure that people who are peacefully protesting, who are merely exercising their First Amendment rights, are clearly not engaging in rioting.”
The move comes as radical leftists nationwide have sought to limit law-enforcement’s ability to keep the piece, including the controversial “defund the police” movement.
While some have claimed the phrase is a misnomer and what they actually mean is to “restructure” police departments, other leftist radicals have maintained that the purpose is precisely what it appears.
Efforts to do so have resulted in skyrocketing crime statistics in major cities like Chicago, New York and Minneapolis. Meanwhile, riots in the Pacific Northwest centers of Portland and Seattle have continued throughout the summer, relatively unchecked.
Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press
