Louisville, Kentucky - A former Kentucky police detective was convicted in federal court Friday of civil rights abuse in the killing of Breonna Taylor, whose death sparked massive racial justice protests across the US in 2020.

Brett Hankison was convicted on one count of civil rights abuse, the Justice Department said in a statement.

Though Hankison's shots did not hit Taylor, he fired blindly through a bedroom window that had a curtain and blinds drawn.

He is the first of four cops federally charged over Taylor's 2020 death to be convicted. Two other officers remain charged with falsifying a search warrant affidavit, and another pleaded guilty to charges around the search warrant.

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However, no one was ever charged for killing Taylor. Myles Cosgrove, whose shots are believed to have caused the death, has since been hired by the Carroll County Sheriff's Office.

Taylor's killing and that of George Floyd, who was murdered by a white police officer in Minneapolis in May 2020, became the focus of a wave of mass protests in the US and beyond against police brutality disproportionately directed at Black people.

"The Justice Department will continue to vigorously defend the civil rights of every person in this country to be free from unlawful police violence," assistant attorney general Kristen Clarke said in the Justice Department statement.

Taylor and her boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, were sleeping in her apartment around midnight on March 13, 2020, when they heard a noise at the door.

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Walker, believing it was a break-in, fired his gun, wounding one police officer.

Police, who had obtained a controversial no-knock warrant to make a drug arrest, fired more than 30 shots back, fatally wounding Taylor.

Hankison argued he fired his gun to protect his fellow officers. It was the second time he appeared in federal court: his first trial ended in a mistrial.

Also on Friday, the jury found him not guilty of violating Taylor's neighbors' rights, for firing through a sliding glass door, also with its blinds and curtain drawn.

Hankison will be sentenced in March next year, the Justice Department said. He could face a life sentence.