Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting (https://kycir.org/author/eklibanoff/)
Eleanor Klibanoff joined the Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting in June 2017. Klibanoff previously worked at Keystone Crossroads, a public radio project covering urban decline and recovery in the Rust Belt. She was a Kroc Fellow at NPR and a recipient of a Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting grant to cover maternal healthcare in Nicaragua and El Salvador.
Before he was arrested earlier this month for domestic violence, Louisville Metro Police Officer Harry Seeders had a long history of similar allegations. The police department was aware of this record when they hired him.
The details of the 2016 allegations — and how little LMPD did with that information — raise additional questions about one of the department’s more prolific cops.
Activists say if community members aren’t allowed into the current negotiations, it could be five years or more before the chance comes again.
Capt. Michael Webb was reassigned on Jan. 8 from his position in the recruitment branch to the Inspections and Evaluations Branch.
The old policy stressed that officers should only shoot at a moving vehicle “when it does not create an unreasonable risk of harm to innocent persons.”
The city and state police had an agreement dictating the terms of KSP investigating LMPD’s police shootings. But it was revoked, and no one is saying why.
The reform could have major repercussions for transparency and accountability — the exact issues this change was intended to address.
Tammy Riggs was at work when she got an alert on her phone from a local news station about a police shooting. She watched the station’s live video stream for hours. “And I didn’t know it was my son,” she said.
Usually, when LMPD kills someone, families are left entirely in the dark about how the police are handling the case, an investigation by Newsy and the Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting found.
As part of its historic, $12 million settlement with the family of Breonna Taylor, Louisville has agreed to implement several major police reforms, including creating an early warning system to identify officer behavioral trends to prevent misconduct. This is not the first time the city has made such a promise. In the wake of police shootings and as a response to critical audits, the Louisville Metro Police Department has frequently asserted that it already has such a system, or is on the cusp of implementing one. The current LMPD policy manual says it is actively using such a system. But it’s not, a joint investigation by Newsy and the Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting has found.