According to local media reports, Myles Cosgrove, who killed Breonna Taylor in March 2020, became a police officer again in a nearby county.
Cosgrove was recently hired by the Carroll County Sheriff's Office, which is about an hour northeast of Louisville, Chief Deputy Rob Miller told The Courier Journal on Saturday.
"We think he will help reduce the flow of drugs in our area and reduce property crimes," Miller said. "We felt like he was a good candidate to help us in our county."
According to Miller, Cosgrove worked for the police for nearly two decades. There has been scrutiny of the hiring both in Louisville and Carroll County.
The return of Cosgrove to the police force illustrates the impunity often granted to law enforcement, said Black Lives Matter Louisville organizer Chanelle Helm.
"The way in which he can go and get a job in the same field should be illegal. For a typical citizen, we aren't able to re-enter certain fields, if we're fired from them. That carries with you," she told member station WFPL.
Cosgrove was one of seven officers involved in the deadly raid inside Taylor's apartment that took place in the middle of the night. Police served a no-knock search warrant, who barged in and startled Taylor, a 26-year-old ER tech, and her boyfriend.
When Taylor's boyfriend thought the officers were intruders, he fired one shot at them. According to an FBI ballistics report, Cosgrove fired half of the 32 shots returned by officers, two of which struck and killed Taylor.
By failing to properly identify a threat when he fired his weapon, Cosgrove violated department procedures on the use of deadly force in January 2021. While conducting the raid, Cosgrove failed to wear a body camera which violated LMPD policy.
The interim LMPD Chief Yvette Gentry wrote in Cosgrove's termination letter: "The shots you fired went in three different directions, indicating you did not verify a threat or have target acquisition."
Gentry added, "In other words, the evidence shows that you fired wildly at unidentified subjects or targets located within the apartment."
In November 2021, Cosgrove appealed the decision to terminate him, but local media outlets reported that the court ruled in the department's favor. Although the Justice Department formally charged four officers with civil rights violations, Cosgrove never faced criminal charges in connection with the shooting.
According to WFPL, the Kentucky Law Enforcement Council voted in 2022 to allow Cosgrove to keep his police certification, making him eligible to work for other law enforcement agencies in the state.
The lack of culpability attributed to Myles Cosgrove is not only an affront to Breonna Taylor's memory but also perpetuates the notion that police should not be punished for killing Black people.
Source: NPR