Police in Louisville, Kentucky, are investigating allegations by at least two women that they were sexually assaulted by an officer involved in the fatal shooting of Breonna Taylor.
The allegations against Officer Brett Hankison were posted on social media in the past week, and they are similar — both women say they were sexually assaulted after he gave them rides home from a bar.
Dwight Mitchell, a spokesman for the Louisville Metro Police Department, told NBC News on Wednesday: "LMPD is aware of these allegations and investigators are looking into them. If anyone has information about these cases, we encourage them to call (502) 574-7144."
Mitchell declined to comment further.
Hankison is one of three officers who have been on administrative reassignment while an investigation is conducted into the death of Taylor, 26, an African American emergency-room technician who was killed by police during a raid at her Louisville home on March 13.
A woman identified as Margo Borders, said in a June 4 Facebook post that on one occasion in April 2018, she went out to a bar with friends. When she went to call an Uber to get home, she said an officer she had interacted with on many occasions at bars in St. Matthews, a city in the Louisville metropolitan area, offered her a ride home.
"He drove me home in uniform, in his marked car, invited himself into my apartment and sexually assaulted me while I was unconscious," she wrote.
She said it took her months to process what had happened and to realize that it wasn't her fault.
She said she did not go to police because she feared retaliation.
"I had no proof of what happened and he had the upper hand because he was a police officer," she wrote. "Who do you call when the person who assaulted you is a police officer? Who were they going to believe? I knew it wouldn't be me."
Borders referenced Taylor's shooting in her post, suggesting that it was Hankison's involvement in that which prompted her to come forward.
A second woman, Emily Terry, also gave her account on Facebook on June 4, writing that in early fall 2019, she was walking home from a bar intoxicated. She said a police officer pulled up next to her and offered her a ride home.
"I thought to myself, 'Wow. That is so nice of him,'" she wrote, adding that she willingly got into his car.
"He began making sexual advances towards me; rubbing my thigh, kissing my forehead, and calling me 'baby,'" she wrote. "Mortified, I did not move. I continued to talk about my grad school experiences and ignored him."
As soon as he pulled up to her apartment building, she said, she got out of the car and ran to the back.
"My friend reported this the next day, and of course nothing came from it," she wrote. "Flash forward, I see his face. This face. Involved with the shooting of Breonna Taylor."
It is unclear who Terry's friend reported the incident to. NBC News attempted to reach Borders and Terry at numbers listed for them and via social media but did not immediately hear back Wednesday.
Hankison, who the police spokesman said has been an officer for 17 years, did not respond to repeated requests for comment. The Louisville police officers' union, which is representing Hankison, also did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.
In addition, a lawyer who has represented Hankison in the past also did not respond immediately to a request for comment.
The Louisville police department's Public Integrity Unit previously cleared Hankison on two unrelated accusations involving sexual misconduct, according to the Louisville Courier-Journal. NBC News was unable to confirm this report.
The family of Taylor, who was a licensed emergency medical technician, has named Hankison along with officers Jonathan Mattingly and Myles Cosgrove in a wrongful death lawsuit.
The fatal shooting occurred after plainclothes officers arrived at Taylor's apartment after midnight on March 13 to serve a no-knock warrant in a drug case.
Attorneys for Taylor's family say her boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, fearing a home invasion, called 911, grabbed a gun and fired, shooting an officer in the leg. He had a license to carry and kept firearms in the home, and Taylor was unarmed.
The lawsuit accuses the officers of "blindly firing" more than 20 shots into the apartment. Taylor was shot eight times and died.
At a March 13 news conference, police Lt. Ted Eidem said officers had knocked on the door several times and "announced their presence as police who were there with a search warrant." After forcing their way in, they “were immediately met by gunfire,” Eidem said.
But the lawsuit by Taylor's family says that police did not knock or identify themselves before they busted into the apartment.
Taylor and Walker had no criminal history or drug convictions, and no drugs were found in the apartment during the raid, the lawsuit states.
The FBI announced on May 21 that it was now investigating Taylor's death. Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron has said that he was asked to serve as a special prosecutor in the case.
