In the National Review article that mountaineer posted a link to, Andrew McCarthy notes that in similar cases of wanton endangerment where nobody was killed or injured the police have generally dealt with it by firing the police officer who committed it. Well the Louisville police did just that, they fired Hankinson months ago. So why charge him now?
Because that's what the AG of Kentucky chose to do in this case. There was a city (s one say recently fired) city employee killed in the raid so that elevated things as well. They charged him now because they've spent the last several months since the shooting doing ballistics and a top to bottom through investigation of the entire incident to include ballistic investigations by the state police as well as the FBI ballistics experts in Quantico.
Unlike what you see on TV those investigations take months to do properly. They charged once all the evidence was gathered and analyzed.
Just like it should have been done.
After all no crime was committed during the incident. Nobody but Taylor was killed, and her death was ruled justified. Nobody is facing charges in this, not even the boyfriend. Why are charges appropriate now and not in past cases? Why should Wilkinson be scapegoated in this?
You aren't from around here are you? There was a crime committed in the fact that Taylor's boyfriend fired first and hit an officer and the officer nearly bled out.
The whole reason for the raid in the first place was because drugs were being sold out of that apartment.
And finally the officer in question reckless and blindly fired his weapon hitting an adjoining apartment where three people were living and could have been struck.
I don't care about past cases or how other DA's or AG's did things. That's a distraction on your part.
All I care about right now is this case and how it was handled.
And this was the proper thing to do in this case.