2 more officers fired for Taylor case roles

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Two more officers involved in the fatal shooting of Breonna Taylor have been fired — a detective believed to have fired the fatal shot and another who sought the search warrant that led to the deadly raid, authorities announced Wednesday.

The announcement came moments after city officials said the former Atlanta police chief would soon take over the Louisville Police Department after months of unrest over Taylor’s death. Erika Shields served in Atlanta for 25 years, including more than three years as chief. Her tenure ended when she resigned in June after Atlanta officers fatally shot a Black man named Rayshard Brooks in a restaurant parking lot.

Detectives Myles Cosgrove, who shot Taylor, and Joshua Jaynes, who sought the warrant for the March 13 drug raid, were informed of their firings Tuesday. Their dismissals follow that of officer Brett Hankison, who was fired in September after being indicted by a grand jury on charges of endangering Taylor’s neighbors by firing bullets that went through her home and into an adjacent apartment.

Taylor, a 26-year-old Black emergency medical technician, was killed as officers attempted to serve a no-knock search warrant. None of the three white officers who fired into her home were charged by a grand jury in her death.

Investigators said Cosgrove fired 16 rounds into the apartment after police breached the front door and Taylor’s boyfriend fired a shot at them, believing they were intruders breaking into the apartment.

In Cosgrove’s dismissal letter, interim Police Chief Yvette Gentry wrote that the detective violated the department’s use-of-force policies for firing 16 shots without identifying a target and for not activating his body camera. Gentry cited Cosgrove’s statements to internal investigators that he began firing at a “distorted shadowy mass.”

Jaynes, the detective who sought the narcotics warrant that led to the raid, was “untruthful” about how he obtained some information about Taylor in the warrant, Gentry wrote. Jaynes was not at the scene the night Taylor was shot.

In a May interview with Louisville police investigators, Jaynes acknowledged that he did not personally verify that a drug-trafficking suspect was receiving mail at Taylor’s apartment, even though he had said in an earlier affidavit that he had.

Jaynes and Cosgrove have been on administrative reassignment, along with another officer who was at the raid, Sgt. Jonathan Mattingly.

Mattingly, who was shot in the leg by Taylor’s boyfriend, said in October that he intended to retire.

In September, Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron, who took on the role of special prosecutor in the case, said Cosgrove and Mattingly were not charged with Taylor’s killing because they acted to protect themselves. The decision angered protesters who have been calling for justice for Taylor for six months.