It's a New Year's miracle! From the Louisville Courier-Journal:
The Louisville Metro Police Department is seeking to fire two more officers in the police shooting of Breonna Taylor — one who sought the "no-knock" search warrant for her apartment and a second who fired the fatal bullet.
Detective Joshua Jaynes received a pretermination letter Tuesday from interim Chief Yvette Gentry after a Professional Standards Unit investigation found he had violated department procedures for preparation for a search warrant execution and truthfulness, his attorney, Thomas Clay, said.
Detective Myles Cosgrove, who the FBI concluded fired the shot that killed Taylor, also received a pretermination letter, his attorney, Jarrod Beck, confirmed Tuesday evening.
In the pretermination letter to Jaynes, Interim Police Chief Yvette Gentry criticized his "extreme violations of our policies, which endangered others" and accuses the detective of severely damaging and discredit the reputations of the police department, and himself.
The local police union is, of course, fighting these terminations, just as another local police union did for the officers who shot and killed Tamir Rice. (Coincidentally: the same day the Louisville Metro Police Department announced the terminations of the cops who killed Breonna Taylor, the Justice Department declined to federally prosecute the cops who killed Tamir Rice.) And police unions are, of course, notoriously powerful and nigh immune to accountability. Even if the cops who killed Breonna Taylor do get fired, there's still a good chance they'll get rehired at another nearby police department.
Previously, the only other police officer in the last 9 months to be penalized for being tangentially connected to the murder of Breonna Taylor and the alleged real estate conspiracy and cover-up that accompanied her death was the guy who shot some stray bullets into a neighboring apartment.
Louisville police seek to fire 2 detectives connected to Breonna Taylor's shooting death [Tessa Duvall, Darcy Costello, and Bailey Loosemore / Louisville Courier-Journal]
Image: Sarahmirk / Wikimedia Commons (CC-BY-SA 4.0)
