LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) – Louisville hired the former Atlanta chief to lead his police department after months of unrest over Breonna Taylor’s fatal shooting, and fired two more officers involved in the deadly operation.
The layoffs were announced on Wednesday by city officials moments after they revealed their choice to lead the department. Erika Shields was the unanimous choice of a panel charged with selecting the new chief, said Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer. She will be the fourth person to lead the department in Kentucky’s largest city since Taylor was shot by police officers who were serving a warrant in March.
“I pledge to begin my work here with a focus on rebuilding the trust of the community, a trust that I believe is already eroding before Breonna Taylor’s death,” said Shields. She also pledged to combat armed violence in the city, which had a record 173 homicides in 2020.
“The past year has shown that we, in law enforcement, have a long way to go,” said Shields, who begins work on January 19.
Trust between the police and many in the city’s black community has eroded since Taylor’s death, sparking months of protests, police reforms and the dismissal of longtime city chief Steve Conrad. Two interim chiefs, including the first black woman at the head of the department, have served since Conrad was fired in June.
“We all felt that Chief Shields was number one,” said David James, a former Louisville police officer and chairman of the city’s Metro Council. “She just got to the top.”
Shields served in Atlanta for 25 years, including more than three as a boss, which ended when she resigned in June after Atlanta cops killed a black man in a restaurant lot.
Shields said she was “disgusted” by the Rayshard Brooks shot. She said on Wednesday that staying as head in Atlanta would be a distraction, so she decided to resign.
For people in Louisville who may be upset about her hiring, she said “I would just ask people to back off, take the time to see what I accomplished, what I believe and how I led the department.”
Det. Myles Cosgrove, who shot Taylor, and Det. Joshua Jaynes, who sought the warrant that led to the March 13 drug raid, was informed of his resignations on Tuesday. Officer Brett Hankison was fired last September after being indicted by a grand jury on charges of endangering Taylor’s neighbors with bullets that passed through her home and hit an adjacent apartment.
Taylor, a 26-year-old black emergency medical technician, was shot and killed while police tried to carry out an undetected search warrant. None of the three white police officers who shot Taylor’s home were charged by a grand jury in his death.
Investigators said Cosgrove fired 16 shots at the apartment after the front door was breached and Taylor’s boyfriend fired at them. Federal ballistics experts said they believed the shot that killed Taylor came from Cosgrove.
Interim police chief Yvette Gentry wrote that Cosgrove failed to “correctly identify a target” when he fired, according to media reports of the letter, which was not released.
Jaynes was not at the scene the night of the shooting, but asked for the warrant that sent the police to Taylor’s home. Gentry said Jaynes lied about how he got some information about Taylor in the warrant.
An internal investigation by the Louisville police found that Jaynes violated the department’s procedures for preparing a search warrant and veracity. Jaynes acknowledged in a May interview with Louisville police investigators that he did not personally verify that a suspected drug trafficker, Jamarcus Glover, was receiving correspondence at Taylor’s apartment, although he said in an earlier statement that he was. Jaynes said he instead relied on information from a fellow police officer.
Jaynes and Cosgrove are on administrative reassignment, along with another officer who was in the attack, the sergeant. Jonathan Mattingly. Mattingly was shot in the leg by Taylor’s boyfriend, who said he thought an intruder was breaking into the house. Mattingly said in October that he intended to retire from the department.
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 murder because they acted to protect themselves. The decision disappointed and angered those who called for justice for Taylor six months ago, and protesters promised to stay on the streets until all the officers involved are fired or someone is charged with his murder.
Three grand jurors, speaking anonymously, have since said that Cameron has not allowed the grand jury to consider murder charges against police officers over Taylor’s death. The three grand jurors said they believed they would have brought criminal charges against the police if they had the chance.
For months, Taylor’s name has been a rallying cry for activists protesting the extrajudicial murder of black men and women. Famous musicians, actors, athletes and politicians called for the arrest of the police.