The Louisville Metropolitan Police Department fired two policemen involved in the sloppy operation that resulted in Breonna Taylor’s death and, in part, launched a summer of protests, officials said.
Dets. Joshua Jaynes and Myles Cosgrove learned last week that the department intended to fire them, and the layoffs became official on Tuesday, according to the Louisville Metro Police Department.
Taylor, who had no criminal record, was sleeping with boyfriend Kenneth Walker when plainclothes officers entered his apartment in the early hours of March 13 to carry out a search and seizure warrant in a drug case.
Walker, who was licensed to carry a gun, called 911 believing the house was being invaded by criminals and opened fire, injuring one of the policemen in the leg.
That’s when the police responded to the fire and killed Taylor, who was unarmed. Cosgrove fired the shot that killed Taylor, Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron said in September.
Jaynes was not at Taylor’s apartment when the shooting started, but hours earlier he obtained a search warrant that led to the deadly confrontation.
Taylor’s deaths in Louisville and George Floyd while he was in police custody in Minneapolis and the initial decisions not to prosecute the individuals involved in the murder of Ahmaud Arbery near Brunswick, Georgia, fueled a summer of international protests against systemic racism.
Despite the clamor against Taylor’s shooting, no criminal charges were made in his death.
Instead, former Louisville police Det. Brett Hankison, who was fired in June, was accused of shooting blindly at an apartment and recklessly endangering Taylor’s neighbors.
