A fundraiser for the family of detective Myles Cosgrove surfaced on GiveSendGo, a Christian-based crowdfunding website. The campaign is seeking $75,000 so Cosgrove can “purchase the remainder of his service time, or ‘air-time,’ so that he can retire from the LMPD and continue to focus on the safety of his family.”
Breonna Taylor died on March 13 after Cosgrove, Sgt. Jonathan Mattingly, and detective Brett Hankison stormed into her apartment. Kenneth Walker, her boyfriend, fired a warning shot at the officers, thinking the home was being burglarized. The trio responded with a hail of gunfire. Taylor was hit five times and ballistic evidence suggests Cosgrove shot the fatal bullet.
According to the fundraising story, the attention caused by the shooting has created a “perpetual, nightmarish reality for Myles and his family.”
The story continued, “They have personally received countless threats. Myles’ reputation has been completely dismantled and the psychological trauma is something that he will have to cope with for the rest of his life. Every day, the threats seem more legitimate and scarier; his family has been doxed and harassed, while the threats remain unrelenting.”
The lengthy screed paints a sympathetic image of Cosgrove and every other police officer across the country.
“Most people simply don’t understand what it’s like to be a police officer in America today. Most people don’t know what it’s like, as a career, to put your life on the line on the daily basis to simply serve and protect your community,” one passage states. “Most people don’t know what it’s like to have a weapon fired at you. Even fewer know what it’s like, after all of that, to have the entire world turn on you with pure vitriol for simply performing your job exactly as you were trained to do by your superiors.”
As of publishing, the fundraiser has received more than $47,000 in donations from hundreds of donors.
Last week, Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron declined to charge Cosgrove, Mattingly and Hankison specifically related to Taylor’s death. Hankison was charged with wanton endangerment for bullets that hit the walls of a neighboring home. He was fired in June while Cosgrove and Mattingly remain on administrative leave.
A federal judge ruled Cameron had to release grand jury recordings for Taylor’s case on Wednesday, Sept. 28. He requested an extension and the deadline was pushed to noon Friday, Oct. 2.
