Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting (https://kycir.org/series/lmpd-police-shootings/)
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Blue light flasher atop of a police car.
Louisville Metro Police officers shot and killed 19 people between 2015 and 2020. We investigate these deaths.
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 Trump administration rarely got involved in local policing. But might Louisville Metro Police see federal intervention under President-elect Biden?
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 But it was revoked, and no one is saying why.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.
Now that the prosecutor has declined to charge the officers who killed Shelby Gazaway, LMPD released the case file.
The officers have not been cleared of wrongdoing in the Shelby Gazaway case, but they’re back on patrol.
Despite weeks of daily calls from protesters to “say their name,” neither Breonna Taylor nor David McAtee is listed by name in the database of police shootings that’s also riddled with inaccuracies.