Cop Who Killed Breonna Taylor Appeals For His Job Back In Louisville Police Department
Former police officer Myles Cosgrove is asking for his job back after firing 16 rounds into Breonna Taylor’s apartment, which killed her in March of 2020.
According to USA Today, Cosgrove, who was fired in January of 2021 for failing to "properly identify a target,” is appealing with the Louisville Metro Police Merit Board to return to the force. At the end of the month, Cosgrove and his legal team will have five days to argue that he should be reinstated.
An internal investigation conducted by the Louisville Metro Police Department determined that the three officers involved, Jonathan Mattingly, Brett Hankison and Myles Cosgrove, should not have fired shots into her apartment in the fatal botched raid.
In documents obtained by ABC News, the department’s Professional Standards Unit determined that the three officers should have held their fire after Taylor’s boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, fired a shot, believing intruders had broken into their home.
According to an FBI ballistics report, Cosgrove fired the shot that killed Taylor while Hankison, standing outside of the apartment door, fired ten rounds into the apartment through a patio door with drawn blinds.
Hankison, who was fired from the LMPD, was the only officer charged for his actions after it was found that he fired three shots into a wall that connected to the adjacent apartment. He was charged with wanton endangerment and pleaded not guilty.
In September of 2020, Kentucky attorney general Daniel Cameron announced that a grand jury declined to indict any officer in Taylor’s death.
Mattingly, who was struck in the leg by Walker’s shot, was not fired. He was cleared of wrongdoing by then-interim police chief Yvette Gentry. She had overruled a recommendation that all three officers face discipline. Mattingly retired as of June 1 and is allegedly writing a book about the incident.
In an October 2020 appearance on ABC’s Good Morning America, Mattingly said that officers knocked on the apartment door six times and loudly identified themselves. "So we stop, we listen. Nobody says anything. We yell again, 'Police, search warrant. Open the door if you're here,' " he said.
But Walker countered that during his own appearance on CBS This Morning in which he said no officer ever identified themselves and he and Taylor only heard loud banging.
“If it was the police at the door and they just said ‘we’re the police,’ me or Breonna didn’t have a reason at all not to open the door and see what they wanted,” said Walker.
During the no-knock warrant raid, the suspect police were looking for, Jamarcus Glover, was already in custody.
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