The first appeal hearing for a police officer fired over the fatal shooting of Breonna Taylor will take place in June.
Louisville’s Police Merit Board will consider an appeal by former detective Joshua Jaynes starting on June 3 for two days. They will return for two more days starting June 29, with the goal of wrapping up that hearing before July.
Jaynes was a key figure in the case of Breonna Taylor, who Louisville police shot and killed in her home in March 2020. He obtained the search warrant for her apartment, and later admitted some language in the affidavit for the warrant was “incorrect.”
In total, LMPD fired three officers connected to the case: Jaynes, Myles Cosgrove and Brett Hankison.
Hankison was fired for allegedly shooting 10 bullets through a covered window and putting Taylor and her neighbors in “substantial danger of death and serious injury.” Cosgrove was fired for violating use of force and body camera policies.
Hankison, Cosgrove and a third officer, Jonathan Mattingly, shot their weapons during the middle-of-the-night raid on March 13, 2020. Mattingly sustained a gunshot wound during the incident and recovered. Mattingly was also investigated for violating departmental policies, but was exonerated.
Then-interim police chief Yvette Gentry fired Jaynes and Cosgrove in January. Her final action letter on the Jaynes case said the allegation that he was untruthful was sustained.
In Jaynes’ request to the Police Merit Board to review his case, he disputed that finding, saying it was “not supported by substantial evidence.”
Both Jaynes and Cosgrove appealed their firings in February. The Police Merit Board has not yet scheduled Cosgrove’s hearing.
Hankison appealed his June 2020 firing. The board will delay hearing that case until the conclusion of the criminal case against him. Hankison was indicted by a grand jury in September 2020 on three charges of wanton endangerment for bullets fired into the apartment of Taylor’s neighbors. He is set to face a jury trial in late August in Louisville.
