A campaign to raise retirement funds for Myles Cosgrove, one of the Louisville, Kentucky police officers involved in the March 13 shooting death of 26-year-old Black medic Breonna Taylor, has received over $44,000 by the time of publication.
The campaign, hosted by the self-proclaimed “#1 free Christian crowdfunding site” GiveSendGo, claims that Cosgrove, a detective in the Louisville Metro Police Department (LMPD), has been demonized on social media, resulting in “a perpetual, nightmarish reality for Myles and his family.”
“They have personally received countless threats,” the text on the campaign webpage reads. “Every day, the threats seem more legitimate and scarier; his family has been doxed and harassed, while the threats remain unrelenting…. Myles may never feel completely safe again.”
The text also talks about Cosgrove’s “dismantled reputation and his “psychological trauma” following Taylor’s murder.
“Most people simply don’t understand what it’s like to be a police officer in America today,” the webpage continues. “Even fewer know what it’s like, after all of that, to have the entire world turn on you with pure vitriol for simply performing your job exactly as you were trained to do by your superiors.”
Cosgrove was one of three police officers who entered Taylor’s apartment in the early hours of March 13, which used a no-knock warrant and a battering ram to knock down her front door. Taylor’s partner, Kenneth Walker, mistook the cops for intruders and opened fire, hitting one officer.
Officers returned fire with roughly 25 bullets, shooting Taylor approximately eight times, killing her. Taylor was unarmed at the time and had no criminal record. Though the officers had been conducting a narcotics investigation, no drugs were found inside her apartment.
The crowdfunding page calls Taylor’s case “a monumental travesty” and “tragic for all involved.” It also says the media has turned her shooting death “into a tool for an agenda that has no regard for the lives that are being destroyed,” although the page’s text doesn’t elaborate on what that agenda is.
On September 23, Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron announced three Grand Jury indictments against former officer Brett Hankison, an officer involved in Taylor’s death, for wanton endangerment in the first degree. He was the only of the three LMPD officers criminally implicated for their roles in Taylor’s death and was also the only officer fired.
The indictments against him didn’t pertain to Taylor’s death, but rather his bullets that completely missed her body and traveled through walls into nearby apartments during the raid. His bond was set at $15,000, which was posted soon afterward.
A grand juror in Taylor’s case sought the release of court records and the transcript to reveal the evidence that Cameron presented, resulting in Hankison’s indictment.
Cameron agreed to release the records, but requested more time before doing so as the Grand Jury audio recording is more than 20 hours long. Cameron wished to redact personally identifiable information of witnesses, including addresses and phone numbers, before releasing the records, Cameron’s spokeswoman Elizabeth Kuhn told CBS News.
In May, the FBI said it was also conducting its own investigation. The agency said it would continue to look at the evidence and interview witnesses “beyond the state charges announced” last week.