Cop whose bullet fatally hit Breonna Taylor starts crowdfunding to fund his retirement

A fundraiser has been set up for Detective Myles Cosgrove, the Louisville Metro Police Department (LMPD) cop whose bullet fatally struck Breonna Taylor, to assist him to retire from the force.

The campaign, which was started on GiveSendGo, explains the funds are being raised to help “secure” Cosgrove’s “safety” as well as that of his “immediate family going forward.” The campaign has so far raised over $18,000 out of the $75,000 target at the time Face2Face Africa reported the story.

“It has recently become clear that it will be impossible for Myles to safely return to his position serving the community with the Louisville Metro Police Department,” the fundraising story said. “We hope to raise enough funds to help him purchase the remainder of his service time, or “air-time,” so that he can retire from the LMPD and continue to focus on the safety of his family, a family that has been put continually at-risk over the past few months.”

Taylor, 26, was killed in her home while sleeping with her boyfriend in a botched narcotics raid by the LMPD on March 13. Taylor’s boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, shot at the officers who were executing a “no-knock” warrant.

Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron, who justified the officers’ use of force, claimed Walker’s shot hit one of the officers, Sgt. Jonathan Mattingly, during a press conference to announce whether or not charges will be brought against them on September 23. Mattingly, together with officers Brett Hankison and Myles Cosgrove, returned fire, hitting Taylor several times.

Walker’s attorney, however, said the ballistics reports from the Kentucky State Police “explicitly does not conclude that Mattingly was struck by the single round” from his client and for Cameron “to state otherwise not only misrepresents the ballistics test but is categorically false.”

“With regards to the media, nationally and locally, the Breonna Taylor case has been forged into a tool for an agenda that has no regard for the lives that are being destroyed,” Cosgrove’s fundraiser claimed.

“Any situation that results in the loss of human life is and should be considered a monumental travesty. As time has passed, as outrage has been made known, and as protests only continue to grow, it is our ongoing stance that creating a conversation which is both safe and rational is the only way to find a solution.”

It added: “We must create an atmosphere of progress for everyone. However, amidst this conversation, safety has proven difficult to come by for Myles and his family and we are, at this point, emotionally concerned for all parties involved.”

A grand jury did not indict Cosgrove, Hankison and Mattingly for Taylor’s death in the September 23 announcement, sparking nationwide protests and outrage from Taylor’s family, activists and sympathizers. Only Hankison, who was fired in the aftermath of the incident, was indicted on three counts of wanton endangerment in the first degree for firing into the apartments of Taylor’s neighbors.

The organizers of the fundraiser claim the threats against Cosgrove and his family in the aftermath of the incident has been unabated as they have been “doxed and harassed.”

The organizers added:

While it’s imperative to listen to each and every one of our city’s voices at this cultural moment, we would like to highlight an important note, a simple exercise in understanding: Most people simply don’t understand what it’s like to be a police officer in America today. Most people don’t know what it’s like, as a career, to put your life on the line on the daily basis to simply serve and protect your community. Most people don’t know what it’s like to have a weapon fired at you. 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. We ask that you take a moment of empathy to place yourself in that position, think about what it would be like for yourself, and now consider what Myles and his family are going through.

GiveSendGo, which describes itself as a “Christian Crowdfunding” platform, also hosts fundraisers for Kyle Rittenhouse, the teenager facing first-degree murder charges for fatally shooting two people during protests in Kenosha, and Rusten Sheskey, the police officer who shot Jacob Blake several times, CNN reports.

Over $500,000 has been raised for the former, while the latter has also received over $30,000 in donations. After the crowdfunding site was criticized for hosting a fundraiser for Rittenhouse, they released a statement saying they allow “anyone to use their site, so long as the crowdfunding is legal, even if the founders disagree with the purpose of the campaign.”

The LMPD told the The Courier-Journal Cosgrove is yet to file retirement paperwork.