Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting (https://kycir.org/author/jacobryan/)
Jacob Ryan joined the Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting in December 2017. For three years prior, he worked as a WFPL News reporter. Ryan is originally from Eddyville, Kentucky.
Kentucky law says seized money must be used for direct law enforcement purposes. A KyCIR review of $3.7 million in spending records shows agencies take varied interpretations of that law.
The proposal would bolster existing reporting requirements related to the seizing of cash and property by law enforcement, and agencies that don’t comply would lose out on money.
The Louisville Metro Police Department closed hundreds of rape investigations in three years. Officers identified the suspects, knew where to find them and had probable cause to arrest them. But in a majority of these closed cases, LMPD officers made no arrests. The officers determined that arrests were just not possible in 51 percent of all 2014-16 rape cases. The agency marked the cases “cleared by exception,” a status intended for exceptional situations, and closed the case.
In Kentucky, 11 percent of police agencies report how much suspected drug money they seize every year. How much nearly 300 other agencies take is unclear.
The chase crossed into a different county and passed through busy intersections, down largely rural highways and neighborhood roads. It covered more than 20 miles in about 17 minutes. Two teenagers were killed.
Some Louisville Metro Council members are calling for changes to how the city’s Landbank Authority sells vacant and abandoned property.
The Landbank Authority director will appear before the council’s Community Affairs and Housing Committee on Wednesday, three weeks after a report from the Kentucky Center for Investigating Reporting found nearly a third of the properties sold by the land bank since 2010 were vacant and in violation of the city’s property maintenance code.
Inspectors found exposed wires, leaky pipes, clogged drains, peeling paint, broken doors and locks, missing sprinklers, roaches and more after assessing 26 units at Dosker Manor, which houses nearly 700 elderly and disabled residents.
The land bank has sold 316 dilapidated properties for as low as $1 in a program designed to boost struggling neighborhoods. But at least 92 of them are vacant.
The company that will oversee the redevelopment of Beecher Terrace has been accused by Missouri’s attorney general of creating unsafe, unsanitary conditions in a public housing complex it manages.