Former police detective Myles Cosgrove, one of the police officers who fired shots killing Breonna Taylor while executing a no-knock search warrant on March 13, 2020, is still without a job. A police merit board upheld the firing of the former Louisville police officer in a 5-2 vote on Dec. 15.
Cosgrove fired 16 rounds into Taylor’s apartment on March 13, 2020, and was fired from the department in January for failing to “properly identify a target.” Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron said last September that Cosgrove, who is white, fired the shot that killed the 26-year-old black woman.
Taylor was killed when officers Jonathan Mattingly, Brett Hankison, and Myles Cosgrove burst through her door with a no-knock narcotics warrant wearing plain clothes. She and her boyfriend, Kenneth L. Walker, were sleeping when police arrived and knocked down the door.
Walker, who had a license to carry a weapon, stated previously that he believed their residence was being burglarized and that’s when he fired a single shot. Police Sgt. Jonathan Mattingly was wounded in the leg as officers returned fire, killing Taylor. All charges against Walker were dropped in March and no-knock warrants have been banned in Louisville as well.
Joshua Jaynes was fired in January 2021 while Hakison was terminated from the department in June 2020. Mattingly retired after the shooting before he was let go. Jaynes wasn’t present when Taylor’s killing occurred but was terminated because he obtained the search warrant.
Jaynes also appealed his firing, but the merit board upheld the decision concluding that the officer lied to obtain a warrant for the botched raid. In September of 2020, Cameron announced at a press conference that a grand jury declined to indict any of the officers in Taylor’s death.
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