THE only police officer facing charges over the raid that killed black paramedic Breonna Taylor in 2020 went on trial in the United States today.

The case follows Tuesday’s finding that the three white men who murdered black jogger Ahmaud Arbery, also in 2020, were guilty of federal hate crimes. Together with the police murder of George Floyd, the Arbery and Taylor killings became focal points of the Black Lives Matter movement that swept the world that year.

Police kicked in the door of Ms Taylor’s home in Louisville, Kentucky, on March 13 2020 under a much criticised “no knock” warrant to look for illegal drugs — which were not found. Ms Taylor’s boyfriend, thinking an intruder was attacking them, opened fire and when police returned fire they killed Ms Taylor, who was unarmed.

The officers who fired the shots that killed Ms Taylor have not been charged. Brett Hankison, whose trial starts today, is charged with “wanton endangerment” for opening fire into a neighbouring apartment when the shooting began, putting a couple and their infant who lived next door at risk. The charges carry a maximum term of five years behind bars.

But civil rights campaigners say this isolated trial will not hold officers to account for the 26-year-old woman’s death.

“The trial of Brett Hankison recalls the inconceivable lack of justice for Breonna Taylor,” Ben Crump, a lawyer acting for her family, said in a pre-trial statement.

“It is hard to comprehend that this is the only criminal trial to emerge from the botched no-knock raid that took her innocent life.”