A GiveSendGo page has been set up by the family of police officer Myles Cosgrove, who fired the lethal shot that ended Breonna Taylor’s life in March. On the page, Cosgrove’s family explains that due to public outrage over Taylor’s death and the lack of charges brought against the officers involved, Cosgrove will never be able to safely work again and thus will need financial support from the public to be able to leave his job and focus on caring for his family.
“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. 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,” reads the fundraiser story.
While some are outraged at the mere idea of Cosgrove asking the public to fund his retirement, others have already begun emptying their pockets. As of the writing of this article, the fundraiser has raised over $36,000, nearly halfway to its $75,000 goal.
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Last week, a grand jury charged only one of the officers involved, Brett Hankison, on three wanton endangerment charges for the bullets he misfired into Taylor’s neighbor’s apartment. No homicide charges were laid for any of the three officers involved in the shooting. Hankison was fired, however Mattingly and Cosgrove remain on paid administrative reassignment while they await the verdicts of an internal police investigation and an FBI investigation. Cosgrove’s wife revealed in a post last week that the incident has changed their lives for the worse, stating that they’ve had to remain in hiding for four months, traumatized, and combating ceaseless threats from strangers every day.
If this fundraiser was to reach its goal, it would allow for Cosgrove to leave his job without having to worry about his family’s financial well-being.