Myles Cosgrove, the ex-Louisville cop who fired 16 bullets into Breonna Taylor’s apartment, one of which the FBI said was the bullet that killed her, is a police officer again.
The sheriff of Carroll County, Kentucky, a rural enclave of about 11,000 residents across the Ohio River from the southeast corner of Indiana (see description here), has hired him to “help reduce the flow of drugs in our area and reduce property crimes,” according the story here.
Sheriff Ryan Gosser’s police force is small; in 2022 it had 6 deputies, 1 special deputy, 4 court security officers, and 2 civilian employees, according to the Daily Mail (here).
Amy Jean Tyler, a local teacher and activist (profile here), tweeted (here) on April 23, 2023, that “Gosser also hired another officer who was convicted of framing a women” (sic). I don’t know whether this is true; if so, then it sounds like Gosser’s office is a wastebasket for rogue cops.
It’s hard to fill police jobs. Back in 2019, the Marshall Project (profile here), in cooperation with the Memphis Commercial Appeal and USA Today, did an article (here) that said police agencies want to hire non-citizens because they’re having trouble recruiting enough officers. If it was hard before the pandemic, it’s even harder now. For a tiny police agency like Gosser’s, it’s tempting to hire someone like Cosgrove, because he’s already trained and experienced in police work.
Cosgrove wasn’t prosecuted for killing Taylor. His police officer certificate wasn’t revoked. He was fired by Louisville PD, but there’s no legal bar to his working as a cop elsewhere, only public outrage. And outrage there is. Hiring Cosgrove is putting Carroll County on the map. It’s making waves. A protest is planned (see story here).
An obvious question is how an ex-Louisville cop ended up in out-of-the-way Carroll County. I don’t know, but I’d guess Cosgrove knows the area (Interstate 71 between Louisville and Cincinnati goes through Carroll County), and either knew someone through his police connections, or saw a job listing and applied for it. If he wants to get back into police work, it’s a fairly logical place for him to end up.
I just wonder what the county’s insurance carrier, if they have one, will think of this. Louisville’s insurers paid $12 million to Taylor’s family and another $2 million to her boyfriend. Cosgrove might not be a deputy for very long if Carroll County’s underwriters object on the grounds it’s too much risk.