LOUISVILLE, Ky., (WDRB) -- Federal prosecutors told a judge Wednesday they will retry former Louisville police Detective Brett Hankison after a jury last month deadlocked on two counts of civil rights violations and using excessive force stemming from his actions the night of the Breonna Taylor raid.

On Nov. 16, a jury deliberated for about 20 hours over four days after hearing seven days of testimony.

U.S. District Court Judge Rebecca Grady Jennings declared a mistrial when the jurors said they had "concluded deliberating" and could not come to a unanimous ruling.

Jennings also noted that court security officers were sent to the juror room because of "elevated voices."

The jurors said they were deadlocked on both charges.

On Wednesday, a prosecutor told Judge Grady Jennings they want to retry Hankison "sooner rather than later."

Hankison’s attorneys said he may choose to add to his defense team or replace them altogether. One of his attorneys, Wes Mathews, is retiring.

"This was going to be my last rodeo," he said. 

A status hearing will be scheduled January 24 to decide whether Hankison will change attorneys, among other issues.

Judge Grady Jennings set a tentative trial date for October. 

"I think it needs to get retried as soon as possible," she said. Grady Jennings had wanted to schedule the trial for July but the attorneys had conflicts. 

Immediately after the November trial ended, attorney Lonita Baker, who represents Breonna Taylor's family, said to reporters that prosecutors told the family they were planning to retry Hankison.

"The family is disappointed," she told reporters. "This is not the outcome they wanted. But we are here for the long game. ... We live for another day to fight for justice for Breonna."

The charges stem from a botched March 13, 2020, raid of Taylor's home in the middle of the night, in which police officers busted down her door to serve a search warrant related to a drug dealer who lived 10 miles away.

When police burst in, Taylor's boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, fired a shot that hit Sgt. John Mattingly in the leg. Walker has said he believed the couple were being robbed.

Multiple Louisville Metro Police officers returned fire, killing 26-year-old Taylor. No drugs were found in her home.

Her death, along with George Floyd's, resulted in months of protests in Louisville and across the country over police brutality and racial discrimination.

The federal trial was about Hankison firing 10 times from outside Taylor's apartment through a covered sliding glass door and blinded windows in Taylor's bedroom window, with three bullets flying into an adjacent apartment where Cody Etherton, Chelsey Napper and her 5-year-old child lived.

In March 2022, a jury in a state criminal case found Hankison not guilty on three counts of wanton endangerment stemming from the shots fired into a neighboring apartment during the raid. Jurors deliberated for about three hours in that case.

During the federal trial, LMPD officers testified that Hankison's actions on the night of the Taylor raid were "shocking," unfathomably dangerous" and "stomach churning," the prosecution said in closing arguments.

He fired "blindly, spraying bullets through two covered windows, ripping through walls into a neighboring apartment" where a family and a child were sleeping, said prosecutor Michael Songer, with the U.S. Department of Justice, in his closing arguments.

Hankison failed to isolate a target and acknowledged not being able to see who he was firing at or where exactly the person was, putting multiple lives in danger, Songer said.

Defense attorney Stew Mathews told jurors have to put themselves in Hankison's shoes at the time, think about what he was seeing and experiencing as an officer was shot and dozens of bullets were fired after they burst into Taylor's home.

"If someone fires at the police, the police are going to fire back at you, and that's exactly what happened here," Mathews said.

Hankison testified he wasn't part of the investigation leading up to the raid and didn't even know the adjacent apartment was there. All Hankison knew was that fellow officers were under fire, he believed from an assault rifle, and that one officer had been shot.

He admitted he was mistaken, and the muzzle flashes were actually coming from Mattingly and Detective Myles Cosgrove, and that Walker only fired one shot from a handgun at police.

"Was I wrong that Mr. Walker shot more than one shot? I know that now," Hankison said. "I fired to stop the threat, sir."

"It's a tragedy for a lot of people and a lot of families and I feel bad about it," Hankison said of the shooting, adding that he believed officers should never have been serving a warrant at Taylor's home to begin with.

But he said if given a chance for a do-over, he "would do the exact same thing" because he was trying to save the lives of his fellow officers.

Hankison, 47, was indicted in August 2022 on two charges of deprivation of rights for firing into a sliding door and bedroom window in Taylor's apartment that was covered with blinds and a blackout curtain after "there was no longer a lawful objective justifying the use of deadly force," according to the indictment. The charges include violating the rights of Taylor's neighbors.

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