Black Lives Still Matter, Con't

US Attorney General Merrick Garland arrived in Louisville this morning, along with DoJ Civil Rights Division Director Vanita Gupta, to make it very clear that the culture of intense racism inside of Louisville Metro PD has resulted in multiple civil rights violations of Black Kentuckians and absolutely contributed to the death of Breonna Taylor.

 

The Louisville Metro Police Department engaged in systemic civil rights abuses and excessive-force misconduct in the years leading up to the 2020 police killing of Breonna Taylor, according to the findings of a federal investigation released Wednesday that is likely to force the department to undergo sweeping changes.

The Justice Department’s probe found that officers committed unlawful and unconstitutional policing, including conducting searches based on invalid warrants, executing search warrants without knocking and announcing their presence, making unlawful stops and violating the rights of people engaging in protected free speech that is critical of the police department.

The report said that the Louisville police department has for years “practiced an aggressive style of policing that it deploys selectively, especially against Black people, but also against vulnerable people throughout the city. ... Failures of leadership and accountability have allowed unlawful conduct to continue unchecked. Even when city and police leaders announced solutions, they failed to follow through.”

The exhaustive and damning report also said that the police and the Louisville city government discriminated against people who have behavior health disabilities when responding to crisis situations.

At a news conference in Louisville, Attorney General Merrick Garland called the misconduct “heart-breaking” and said it “erodes the community trust that is needed for effective community policing.”

The report took nearly two years and was released just days before the third anniversary of Taylor’s death on March 13. It starts the clock on negotiations between the federal authorities and Louisville city and police leaders that is expected to result in a court-approved consent decree outlining what could amount to hundreds of specific changes within the department overseen by a federal monitor.

Although Louisville community leaders have decried reported abuses from officers for years, the Justice Department’s findings could spark new anger and distrust in the city’s police force.

Local residents protested for weeks after Taylor, 26, a Black emergency-room technician, was killed when plainclothes police officers burst into her apartment to carry out a search warrant in a drug probe. Her death, along with the police killing weeks later of George Floyd, a Black man, in Minneapolis sparked months of social justice demonstrations across the country.

Garland announced the pattern or practice probes into the police forces in both cities within his first days on the job in April 2021. The investigations involved a deep forensic review of nearly all aspects of each department, including reviews of data and body-camera footage, training methods, accountability structures, facilities and equipment, and management. The Minneapolis investigation is ongoing.

The lengthy review also weighed heavily on the Louisville police force as it attempted to repair trust with local residents while also combating a rise in violent crime that tracked national trends.

Erika Shields, hired by the city as chief in early 2021, struggled to balance her own push for greater accountability within the department with the ongoing specter of the federal probe. She resigned late last year after the voters elected a new mayor, Craig Greenberg (D), who named a Shield deputy, Jacquelyn Gwinn-Villaroel, to take over as interim police chief.

“I’ve met with several officers and divisions from across the police force and there is a renewed sense of optimism about new leadership in terms of the interim chief and mayor. That’s important,” Marcus Winkler, who took over in January as the chairman of the Louisville Metro Council, said in an interview Tuesday. “What would be interesting to see is how bad is the report from the DOJ? Is there some healing that will have to happen first in the community?”

The Justice Department has sought to demonstrate to local residents that it will seek accountability in Taylor’s killing. Last August, prosecutors filed federal civil rights charges against four current and former Louisville police officers, amid an outcry from civil rights activists and Taylor’s family that no one has been convicted of a crime in her death.

 

The report on LMPD is brutal, detailing massive, rampant, institutionalized and systemic racism that will take years to fix.  Louisville cops called Black folk "monkeys" and "animals" and used excessive, sometimes lethal force. Dozens of lawsuits have been settled, and dozens more will come, I'm sure. 

But even consent decrees aren't a panacea fix, Cincy PD has been under a consent degree for decades. You can't fix a systemic and institutionalized issue like policing without wholesale changes in every facet of interaction with the community they serve.

 

And let's remember, LMPD put in "changes" after Breonna Taylor was killed almost three years ago. The DoJ found those measures to be 100% ineffective.

Black Lives Still Matter, though.

LMPD officers killed Breonna Taylor.

 

Don't forget that.