Detective Fired Over Breonna Taylor Shooting Sues to Get his Job Back

The former Louisville Metro Police officer who fatally shot Breonna Taylor is suing to get his job back. Last January, Myles Cosgrove was fired last January after the department’s merit board approved his termination by a vote of 5-2.

Cosgrove filed suit against the department and the Louisville Metro Police Merit Board in Jefferson Circuit Court on Wednesday, four months after the board upheld his January 2021 firing. Scott Miller, who is serving as Cosgrove’s lead attorney, said the termination was “arbitrary and unlawful due to actions in excess of its authority or in violation of due process,” in the complaint.

Miller also argues the board made multiple mistakes in handling the case. Sgt. Justin Witt, an LMPD officer on the board at the time of the vote, failed “to disclose a conflict of interest that would justify recusal and improperly influencing board deliberations and decision-making,” Miller wrote, according to the Louisville Courier Journal.

Findings from the investigation were also included in the lawsuit. Last year, Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron concluded that the former officer was legally justified in returning fire after Breonna Taylor’s boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, fired on officers first. Miller alleges that the board discarded this ruling.

Myles Cosgrove was fired by former interim Chief Yvette Gentry for failing to “properly identify a target” when he fired into Taylor’s apartment on March 13, 2020.

Ex-LMPD detective Scott Hankinson was also fired as a result of his participation in the raid. In addition, Hankinson was charged and ultimately acquitted for firing rounds that travelled through a back window and into surrounding apartments.

Hankinson was ultimately found not guilty on multiple counts of felony wanton endangerment last month.

Prior to the trial, he was fired from the department before the in 2020 after a former interim chief called the rounds he shot through the covered door and window “a shock to the conscience.” He appealed his firing to the merit board, but the appeal hearing was set aside until criminal proceedings concluded.

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