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Courtesy of Taylor Family attorney Sam Aguiar via AP, File
- Myles Cosgrove, one of the police officers involved in the shooting death of Breonna Taylor, and Detective Joshua Jaynes, the officer who obtained the “no-knock” warrant for the raid, will be fired by the Louisville Metro Police Department, The Washington Post reported.
- The action comes nine months after Taylor was killed during a botched raid in Louisville.
- In June, Officer Brett Hankison was fired by the LMPD for his involvement in the Taylor shooting.
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Two police officers involved in the raid that resulted in the death of Breonna Taylor are expected to be fired by the Louisville Metro Police Department, The Washington Post reported.
Detective Myles Cosgrove, the officer who fired the shot that killed Taylor, and Detective Joshua Jaynes, the detective who obtained the search warrant for the raid, were told on Tuesday that the department was working to remove them.
Lawyers for Cosgrove and Jaynes said they received notices of termination. Both officers have been on administrative reassignment for the duration of an investigation.
The termination also comes after the city’s interim police chief, Yvette Gentry, promised to take action.
Jaynes is accused of offering misleading information when he said in the search warrant affidavit that he verified with the US Postal Service that packages intended for Taylor's ex-boyfriend - the target of the raid in which Taylor was killed - were delivered to Taylor's apartment. Gentry said Jaynes did not get that information from the USPS but from another officer, CNN reported.
"Having an independent, third party verify information is powerful and compelling information," Gentry wrote in a letter to Detective Jaynes, according to The New York Times. "The inclusion of this in the affidavit as a direct verification was deceptive."
Jayne's lawyer, Thomas Clay, defended his client to the Times.
"They have basically tried to throw him under the bus and he's not going to fit under the bus because he did nothing wrong," Clay said.
On March 13, three officers entered Taylor's home during a "no-knock" warrant search and fired shots that killed Taylor. Police said they started shooting after Taylor's boyfriend shot at the officers.
Taylor was shot eight times.
Following the shooting, Officer Brett Hankison was charged with three counts of first-degree wanton endangerment, but a grand jury declined to file charges against the other two officers at the scene, Cosgrove and Sgt. Jonathan Mattingly.
The charges against Hankison were related to firing shots into a neighboring apartment, and not directly tied to Taylor's death.
Taylor's death, alongside the police killings of George Floyd and Daniel Prude, prompted protests across the country. Activists have demanded that those involved in Taylor's death face consequences.
Kentucky state lawmaker, Rep. Attica Scott introduced a law to ban "no-knock" warrants following Taylor's case.
In an email sent to members of the department Tuesday night, Gentry told officers they had unfairly been held responsible for the actions of those involved in the Taylor case.
"To this point, every officer on this department has unequally borne the burden of decisions that you all did not make and had to work under conditions you did not create," she wrote, according to the Courier-Journal. "Bringing closure to this case is important not only for the families impacted but for all of you to stop working under the cloud of suspicion."