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As Louisville Leaders Push Reform, Police And Prosecutors Push Back
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As protests continued in Louisville, criminal justice leaders discussed what reform measures they’d lobby for. The police and prosecutors often weren’t on board.
Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting (https://kycir.org/category/criminal-justice/page/2/)
As protests continued in Louisville, criminal justice leaders discussed what reform measures they’d lobby for. The police and prosecutors often weren’t on board.
Law enforcement agencies in Kentucky have a new way to bring more transparency to the process of obtaining a search warrant, but police in Louisville aren’t using it.
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.
When a judge ordered Brett Hankison not to possess any guns, it was up to him to give them up.
Louisville is engulfed in protests and has been all summer long. In that time, Louisville Metro Police have arrested at least 46 people for burglary charges and deemed them to be connected to the protests, according to data provided by the Louisville Metro Police Department.
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.
Now that the prosecutor has declined to charge the officers who killed Shelby Gazaway, LMPD released the case file.
Despite regularly reviewing fatalities for more than 25 years, Louisville’s domestic violence response remains imperfect. The reviews often raise the same issues, again and again.
Despite the contagious virus taking root inside the jail, judges continue to set bail amounts that are out of reach for some people. Government agencies lean on a set of narrow parameters when deciding who gets set free. The pandemic is also leading to delayed court hearings for some people, resulting in extended stays behind bars where they risk infection.
The result: Hundreds of people stuck in a cramped jail as a dangerous, contagious virus spreads, infects and, in some cases, kills. Many inmates and their families are turning to bail funds for a shot at getting out of confinement.