One of the three Louisville officers who shot at Breonna Taylor was recently hired by a law enforcement agency in Kentucky.
Myles Cosgrove was hired by the Carroll County Sheriff’s office in Kentucky, according to the department’s chief deputy Robert Miller. He was reportedly hired on April 20 and is already on active duty in the county, which is an hour away from Louisville.
Cosgrove was fired from the Louisville Metro Police Department in January 2021 for violating use-of-force procedures and failing to use his body camera during the botched raid.
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Taylor was killed on March 13, 2020, when Cosgrove and officers Brett Hankison and Jonathan Mattingly breached her apartment door on a search warrant in connection with a drug investigation. LMPD claimed in their warrant Taylor’s ex-boyfriend Jamarcus Glover was using the apartment to receive drug packages.
Taylor’s boyfriend at the time, Kenneth Walker, fired a shot that struck one of the officers in the thigh as they broke the hinges on the door. Walker and Taylor had been in bed when they heard the initial loud banging at the door. The couple also reportedly called out asking who was at the door.
The officers reportedly fired several shots, including five that struck Taylor. Investigators concluded that Cosgrove fired 16 shots into the apartment including the shot they believed killed Taylor.
Cosgrove and the other officers involved were never charged with homicide in the shooting, but Hankison did face federal civil rights violations that included lying to obtain a search warrant for Taylor’s apartment.
According to The Associated Press, Kentucky Law Enforcement Council voted in November not to revoke Cosgrove’s state peace certification. It meant he could apply for other law enforcement jobs in Kentucky.
Miller reportedly said that the decision to hire him was based on his experience as an officer and his technical skills. He believes those two things could benefit a small county sheriff’s department like Carroll County. He added that Cosgrove was executing the no-knock warrant as ordered.
“We’re going to give him a chance,” Miller said to WLKY News.
He was also asked about community reactions to the hire of Cosgrove and told WLKY News “there will be opinions on both sides of the equation.”
A protest was held on Monday by community members from Carroll County and Louisville that opposed the decision to hire Cosgrove. It was reported that a small group gathered outside of Carroll County Courthouse and repeatedly yelled, “Hey hey, ho ho, Cosgrove has got to go.”
Antonio Brown, a Louisville activist who traveled to the protest, said the hiring “spit in the face of Americans, not just people in Kentucky.”
Other comments from social media supported the small group of protestors.
“Is cancel culture being a murderous, abject failure at your job and getting the same job elsewhere?” wrote Sharlene King on Twitter.
