Twenty-seven months after he was fired, former Louisville police officer Myles Cosgrove is back on the job like he never shot Breonna Taylor. Cosgrove recently started a law enforcement job in Carroll County, about an hour northeast of the Kentucky city where he was once employed.
In defending the controversial hire, Carroll County Chief Deputy Rob Miller told the Courier Journal of Louisville that state and federal investigations had cleared Cosgrove of any criminal charges. But at no point did Miller mention any training or rehabilitation, any attempts by Cosgrove to reckon with his snuffing out an innocent life or the corrupt behavior of his colleagues who lied about evidence and their actions.
It’s giving no harm, no foul, justifying a delusional, dangerous gamble made not at his or Cosgrove’s expense but against Black women’s lives, in which they both clearly see no worth.
At no point did Miller mention any training or rehabilitation, any attempts by Cosgrove to reckon with his snuffing out an innocent life
The Louisville Metro Police Department fired Cosgrove for failing to properly “identify a target” while shooting 16 rounds into Taylor’s apartment the previous year during a botched narcotics raid, violating the department’s use-of-force procedures, and failing to use a body camera. But he remained eligible to police in Kentucky, as the Kentucky Law Enforcement Council voted in 2022 not to revoke his police certification.
“We think he will help reduce the flow of drugs in our area and reduce property crimes,” Miller said of Cosgrove on Sunday. He also commended Cosgrove’s “technical skills” and nearly 20-year-long career. “We felt like he was a good candidate to help us in our county.” In short, the Carroll County Sheriff’s Office wanted to “give him a chance,” the chief deputy explained to WLKY-TV of Louisville.
I understand the potentially transformative power of a second chance, especially as part of a community that only rarely gets them. But in the case of fatal police shootings, the cost is too steep. Even if Cosgrove were to become the upstanding law enforcement official on whom Miller has wagered his community’s lives, a damning message has already been sent nationwide.
Most immediately, the hiring of Cosgrove is a critical issue of safety and trust. Dee Dee Taylor, Breonna’s sister, fears that another deadly incident could easily happen to another family. “It’s like instead of them getting a consequence, their reward … their consequence is a new job or being able to move on to a new community, still holding a gun, still interacting with the community, without any consequence,” she told NBC affiliate WOOD of Grand Rapids, Michigan. “And that in itself is a liability to our community in my opinion.”
This hiring also foregrounds that Taylor’s killing does not exist in isolation. Charleena Lyles, 30, a pregnant woman with a documented mental illness, was shot after she called the cops to her Seattle home. A jury determined that the officers were justified. Ma’Khia Bryant, 16, was also shot by police at her Columbus, Ohio, home after she called officers for help, only to die at the hospital. A grand jury declined to charge the involved officer.









