He spent 18 years with LMPD. Can interim Chief Humphrey fix the mess Gwinn-Villaroel couldn't?

Interim police Chief Paul Humphrey has been a Louisville Metro Police officer for 18 years.

He is a product of a system that has failed us, a system that the U.S. Department of Justice has found to be abusive, racist and untrustworthy, at least when it comes to policing its own people accused of sexual misconduct.

So the question becomes, can someone born of this system, bred of this system and who cut his teeth in this system fix this system?

We're about to find out.

Mayor Craig Greenberg tapped the 40-something Louisville native to lead the department on an interim basis after he had to force out or at the very least accept the resignation of the old chief because she blew off one of her majors who accused another member of her command staff of sexual harassment and of attacking her.

It would have been bad enough had former chief Jacquelyn Gwinn-Villaroel done that anywhere else, but in Louisville, it was absolutely unforgiveable since the DOJ had noted a year earlier officers here had violated people's civil rights and that it failed to take claims of sexual misconduct by its officers seriously.

"We found numerous instances where LMPD did not open administrative investigations to correspond to criminal investigations into reports of sexual misconduct and domestic violence by officers," according to the DOJ report.

For the two weeks he had been acting chief and at the press conference where he was named the interim chief, Humphrey has said the right things.

He has talked about needing to change the culture at LMPD.

Certainly that is true.

The culture there is toxic. It's led to situations where police can abuse not only the people they have sworn to protect but also their fellow officers. And the fellow officers say nothing.

We saw that in the "slushygate" incidents in which officers threw drinks on people walking the streets, and their coworkers — and even their bosses — didn't report them. In fact, some of them lied and claimed ignorance.

Imagine a whole department of Sgt. Schultzes. "I know nothing. I see nothing."

And at Tuesday's press conference, Humphrey talked about the need to take claims of sexual misconduct seriously.

That's a tall order for this department.

Officer Christine Silk recently filed a lawsuit claiming that she had been sexually harassed by two of her training officers. One, Dale Cottongim, called her out publicly and asked outrageous questions about whether she had her child after a one-night stand and suggested she "whore herself out" in exchange for child care.

No other officers or recruits who witnessed it spoke up.

Another training officer, Justin LeMon, allegedly texted her a picture of his penis and repeatedly made suggestive statements to her, and once held her car door open and demanded she look at his crotch.

Other officers didn't ostracize the perpetrators.

According to the lawsuit, they were told to stay away from Silk, and she faced retaliation and discrimination.

Another officer, Sgt. Lauren Carby, filed suit claiming she attended a pool party at the home of Major Shannon Lauder and her husband, Lt. Jeff Lauder, and that the Lauders pressured Carby to have sex with Jeff Lauder.

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Other officers were present at the party and according to the lawsuit saw some of the inappropriate behavior taking place. No one spoke up.

The Fraternal Order of Police filed a suit and stopped the department from investigating those claims, which is a problem in itself.

And then there was the claim by Shannon Lauder that brought on the downfall of Gwinn-Villaroel.

It's unclear whether her claims about Major Brian Kuriger were claims of actual violence or if they simply stemmed from his effort to investigate the pool party claim.

One thing that's concerning is that Gwinn-Villaroel went ahead and promoted Kuriger moments after Lauder made her claim in the command staff meeting — and no one in the room appeared to step up and say, "Whoa, slow down there partner."

At least if they did, that part of the conversation didn't appear on the recording of the meeting first aired by WAVE. The Courier Journal has received and reviewed the recording, but the city has not confirmed or denied its authenticity.

Among those people taking part in that meeting was Humphrey.

Greenberg took a pass on saying whether Humphrey should have spoken up. "Based on what I know at this point in time, I'm comfortable with the decision that I've made," he said. "I have confidence in Chief Humphrey and I think we have dealt with that issue in the appropriate way."

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Humphrey, through a police spokesman, declined to say why he didn't speak up.

"We're not going to comment on active investigations," Sgt. Matt Sanders said.

Nonetheless, Humphrey said the right things at the press conference.

The department is retraining all officers on sexual harassment — it seems some don't know that you shouldn't send unwanted pictures of your penis to women officers and one allegedly didn't know it wasn't alright to pressure a subordinate to have sex with her husband — and they're making it easier to report sexual harassment. Humphrey is taking the advice of the Inspector General's office and he's instituted policy changes immediately.

We'll see now if the FOP has any desire to fix the department or if it will file suit to block some of these changes, claiming they were not part of the contract Greenberg negotiated last year in secret.

The good news is that Humphrey said he didn't attend any of the swinging parties alleged to have taken place at the Lauder pool.

That's good. At least he's not tainted by that aspect of this broken police department.

I'm pulling for Humphrey. He's a St. X guy. So am I. I'd love to see him succeed.

The question is whether Humphrey can rise above his raising and fix this mess.

After all, he was born of this system, bred of this system and cut his teeth in this system.

And the system is broken.

Joseph Gerth can be reached at 502-582-4702 or by email at jgerth@courierjournal.com.

This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Louisville police chief resigns. What's next for Louisville police?