2 detectives involved in Breonna Taylor raid are fired
LOUISVILLE, Ky. —Two more officers involved in the fatal shooting of B re on na Taylor have been fired — a detective believed to have fired the fatal shot and another who sought the search warrant that l ed 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. Erik a 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 My les Cos grove, who shot Taylor, and Joshua Jaynes, who sought the warrant for the March 13 drug raid, were informed of their firing son Tuesday. Their dismissals follow that of officer Brett Hank is on, 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 t he 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. Federal ballistics experts said they believe the shot that killed Taylor came from Cosgrove.
In Cos grove' s dismiss al letter, interim Police Chief Yvette Gentry wrote that the detective violated t he department's use- offorce 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” after Taylor's boyfriend fired a single shot at officers.
“The shots you fired were in three different directions, indicating you did not verify a threat or have target acquisition,” Gentry wrote.
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, J ayn es 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 said he relied instead on information from a fellow officer.
“I acknowledge that you prepared the warrant in good faith ,” Gentry wrote in a letter to Jaynes. “However you failed to inform the judge that you had no contact with the US postal inspector.”