Louisville to share more details on police officers, cases referenced in DOJ report
Mayor Craig Greenberg's administration said Friday it will release more specifics on the officers and civil rights violations referenced in the U.S. Department of Justice's damning investigation into Louisville Metro Police and city government.
The move comes after Metro Council members and community leaders called for naming the LMPD personnel who were listed in the report as having mistreated and violated the civil rights of residents. The 90-page Justice Department report did not identity any when released this month.
"We have just received this information from the Department of Justice and are beginning our review of the referenced documents, files and body camera footage to identify all the details of the incidents referenced in the findings report," Greenberg's spokesman, Kevin Trager, said Friday in a statement. "When that review has been completed, we will release details of each incident and supporting documents.”
In a statement provided to The Courier Journal through a spokesman, LMPD said it received information Monday from the Justice Department "that will allow the administration to identify the complete facts of the incidents referenced in the report and what investigation, if any, was previously conducted."
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"Each incident will be thoroughly reviewed for LMPD to assemble a comprehensive report which will be made public," the department's statement said. "In the report, LMPD’s administration will provide all relevant information to include Professional Standards Unit Investigation and/or Public Integrity Unit files on the relevant cases."
The process will take 35 to 45 days to complete because of the volume of information and to allow proper review of the facts, the statement said.
In a Monday email to an official with Jefferson County Attorney Mike O'Connell's office, a Justice official provided details, such as the PSU case file numbers, search warrant numbers, court cases and body camera footage.
Paul Killebrew, deputy chief of the Special Litigation Section in the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, told Project Manager Eric Graninger, with O'Connell's office that the information "does not necessarily represent the entirety of information we considered in assessing whether a particular incident violated federal law or the Constitution."
"... Where we identified a violation, we did not separately assess the involved officer's individual culpability for the violation," Killebrew said. "...[T]he incidents cited as examples represent a portion of the evidence we uncovered. ... [I]n using this information, LMPD must carefully guard against the potential for retaliation against witnesses and complainants."
The Justice Department released its 90-page report on March 8, with U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland and other federal officials coming to Louisville to share findings. The Greenberg administration said it is working with the feds on finalizing a consent decree in the coming months that will list changes Louisville and its police department must make to come into federal compliance.
Garland announced the pattern-or-practice investigation into LMPD and city government in April 2021, after Louisville and other cities saw months of protests over the police killings of Breonna Taylor and other Black Americans.
The key conclusions in the report, which covered a time period from 2016 to 2021, were that LMPD:
Uses excessive force, including unjustified neck restraints and unreasonable use of police dogs and tasers.
Conducts searches based on invalid warrants.
Unlawfully executes warrants without knocking and announcing.
Unlawfully stops, searches, detains and arrests people during traffic and pedestrian stops.
Violates the rights of people engaged in protected speech critical of policing.
Discriminates against people with behavioral health disabilities while responding to crises.
The Justice Department said LMPD officers "arrest people who have not committed any crimes, citing them for offenses — such as disorderly conduct or menacing —w ithout evidence establishing the elements of the offense."
"In one case, officers charged a Black woman with 'obstructing governmental operations' and 'obstructing a highway' for changing her baby’s diaper in a car parked in an alley behind her family’s house," the report said.
Other findings included officers calling Black residents "monkeys" and breaking into homes without having any search warrants to look for suspects who were not even inside, though other residents sometimes were.
"From 2016 through 2022, LMPD did not discipline a single officer for biased law enforcement practices or racial prejudice," the report found.
Greenberg's chief of staff and general counsel, David Kaplan, has appeared twice before Metro Council members this month to answer questions about the report and next steps.
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Kaplan told council members during their March 16 meeting that over 60 specific incidents, though no names, were in the report, and the Justice Department listed 36 remedial measures it says LMPD should adopt on serving search warrants and other problem areas.
Council members, particularly the seven Black Democrats who sit in the same row because they represent the 1st through 7th districts, repeatedly asked Kaplan whether officials will release the names of the officers who had not been identified either in the report or through past media coverage.
A few Republican council members, meanwhile, expressed concerns over the report, including not including specific benchmarks to measure improvements and whether the consent decree could stretch on for years and cost millions of dollars.
“I think there should be an investigation of the judges, the [police] majors that knew about it, the sergeants, all of those,” Metro Councilwoman Barbara Shanklin, D-2nd District, said during the March 16 meeting. “There’s no way they did not know that the officers who work for them were doing these things."
One change became public this week: Jefferson Circuit Court judges have adopted a practice in which they will be randomly selected to review LMPD's search warrant requests.
The Justice Department said it had found six local judges approved more than half of warrant applications it reviewed as part of its investigation despite a "rotating schedule for judges to review warrant applications" put in place by Jefferson County.
Some council members have also called for those six judges to be named.
Reach Billy Kobin at bkobin@courierjournal.com
This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Louisville police to share details about officers, cases in DOJ report
