Former Louisville Police officer Brett Hankison testifies in a Louisville, Kentucky court room.
Myles Cosgrove, one of the former Louisville officers who fatally shot 26-year-old Breonna Taylor in 2020 in a botched, no-knock raid of her Louisville apartment took the stand on Friday, Nov. 3, to testify on behalf of another officer who has been slapped with federal charges for civil rights violations.
Cosgrove, who fired the fatal shot is not facing charges and has been hired by a local sheriff’s department, where he has already been involved in another altercation with a local citizen. Now a sheriff’s deputy in Carroll County, Kentucky, Cosgrove reportedly rammed a resident’s truck with his cruiser Monday and then pointed a gun at the owner and several bystanders, witnesses said.
On the second day of the federal trial for Brett Hankison, a former Louisville officer facing civil rights charges in the botched raid that killed Breonna Taylor, Cosgrove took the stand to testify. However, that testimony expressed shock and disappointment instead of support.
“It’s so powerful to take someone’s life… It’s not the outcome that I wanted,” Cosgrove said on the stand. “What I did protected my life and protected Jon’s [Mattingly’s] life. I can live with that, humbly, knowing that. But the outcome is the least desirable thing I would ever wish.” Cosgrove said on the stand
While defense attorneys expected Cosgrove to testify on Hankison’s actions the night of March 13, 2020, the man who fired the fatal shot recalled the chain of events, when he and former officer Jonathan Mattingly returned fire after being shot in the leg by Kenneth Walker, Taylor’s boyfriend. After bullets sprayed toward Walker and Taylor, who was unarmed and standing beside him, Cosgrove said the officers retreated to the parking lot.
The disgraced officer said that while in the parking lot he heard a flurry of bullets coming from Taylor;s apartment where he says he was shocked that Hankisnon was firing his weapon indiscriminately and without regard for the safety of others.
No officers were charged for the young woman’s death.
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