Louisville cop shot during Breonna Taylor riots shows up to roll call after release from hospital

One of the two officers shot during Wednesday night’s riots in Louisville has returned to his police precinct just hours after being released from hospital. 

Major Aubrey Gregory was greeted with a round of applause from colleagues as he arrived at the Louisville Metro Police Department for roll call on Thursday morning. 

Gregory is the commander of Louisville police department’s special operations division and was leading the response to riots that erupted in the city Wednesday night, following a grand jury’s decision not to indict cops on murder charges over the shooting death of black woman, Breonna Taylor. 

Gregory has been a Louisville police officer since 1999, according to the Courier Journal.  

He previously served as commander of the city’s Fifth Division and has experience working with Louisville’s SWAT team and bomb squad.  

Meanwhile, the second officer shot during the night of violence in Louisville on Wednesday –  Officer Robinson Desroches – remains in hospital following surgery. 

Desorches was was struck by a bullet to the abdomen  just below his bullet proof best. He is currently listed in a stable condition. 

Larynzo Johnson, 26, was arrested over the shooting and charged with two counts of assault of a police officer and 14 counts of wanton endangerment. 

An arrest citation says Johnson ‘intentionally used a handgun to fire multiple bullets at officers… causing serious physical injury’ to two cops struck by the gunfire, reported the Courier Journal.  

It is not clear whether the charges could be upgraded following an investigation. 

A total of 127 protesters were arrested during unrest in Louisville, where Breonna Taylor lived prior to her death back in March.  

Taylor was shot and killed by officers who were conducting a no-knock search warrant of her home in relation to a drug investigation. 

Taylor was allegedly sleeping in bed with her boyfriend at the time officers stormed into her apartment. 

The intrusion prompted her startled boyfriend to fire his own gun at the cops, who then fired back in self-defense. Taylor became caught in the cross-fire and was shot six times. She died at the scene. 

On Wednesday, a grand jury decided not to pursue murder charges against the three cops involved in the incident. 

Instead, it handed down its decision to indict just one of the officers,  Brett Hankison, on charges of wanton endangerment for shooting into the homes of Taylor’s neighbors.    

Hundreds of protesters began marching through Louisville streets immediately after the announcement. 

Tensions quickly boiled over as protesters confronted lines of police officers who fired pepper balls and used wooden batons to drive them back. 

Thousands out demonstrators also took to the streets in cities across the country, including New York, Washington, D.C., Philadelphia and Las Vegas. 

On Thursday evening, tensions between protesters and cops continued despite a city-wide curfew being put into place.   

Demonstrators massed at First Unitarian Church, where clergy allowed them to seek refuge on church grounds to avoid arrest during curfew, and a massive police cordon was established around the property.

A church leader at the scene explained that churches were exempt from the emergency curfew order, and said that the demonstrators had been invited onto the church grounds to avoid arrest.

It came after BLM protesters smashed the windows of a public library in downtown Louisville and threw a flare inside as authorities extended a citywide curfew into the weekend and the National Guard prepared to deploy.