2 Louisville police officers fired over roles in fatal shooting of Breonna Taylor


2 Louisville police officers fired over roles in fatal shooting of Breonna Taylor

The Louisville Metro Police Department fired two officers involved in the botched raid that resulted in Breonna Taylor’s death and, in part, launched a summer of protests, authorities said.

Detectives Joshua Jaynes and Myles Cosgrove learned last week that the department intended to fire them, and those terminations became official on Tuesday, according to a letter from Louisville Metro Police Department Chief Yvette Gentry to the officers.

Cosgrove violated standard operating procedures for deadly force and failure to activate his body-worn camera, the chief said.

Jaynes was was fired for two departmental violations tied to his work securing the search warrant for the deadly March 13 raid, according to Gentry.

Taylor, who had no criminal record, was with boyfriend Kenneth Walker when plainclothes officers entered her apartment in the early morning hours to serve a no-knock search warrant in a drug case.

Walker, who had a license to carry a weapon, called 911 believing the home was being invaded by criminals and opened fire, wounding one of the officers in the leg.

That’s when police returned fire, and Taylor was killed. Cosgrove fired the shot that killed Taylor, Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron said in September.

Jaynes was not at Taylor’s apartment when gunfire erupted, but hours earlier he secured the search warrant that led to the deadly confrontation.

Jaynes’ attorney Thomas Clay said his client will appeal to a city board that reviews police terminations.

“He’s being made a scapegoat,” Clay told NBC News on Wednesday, saying the March 13 raid was “fully briefed” to the highest levels of the police department before it happened.

“There is a culpability, if there is any culpability, it goes to the highest levels of Louisville metro government. He did nothing wrong. Joshua Jaynes did nothing wrong.”

A lawyer for Cosgrove and representatives from the police union could not be immediately reached for comment on Wednesday.

The deaths of Taylor in Louisville and of George Floyd while he was in Minneapolis police custody, and the initial decisions not to charge the individuals involved in the killing of Ahmaud Arbery near Brunswick, Georgia, fueled a summer of international protests against systemic racism.

Despite the outcry against Taylor’s shooting, no criminal charges were sought in her death.

Instead, former Louisville police Det. Brett Hankison, who was fired in June, was charged for allegedly firing blindly into an apartment and recklessly endangering Taylor’s neighbors.


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