A Louisville Metro Police Department officer is under internal investigation after listing “ERO” — an acronym used by a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement unit — as the reason for more than 100 searches of the agency’s license plate reader data.
The Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting highlighted Officer Wesley Troutman’s searches earlier this month in a report that examined how law enforcement across the country are accessing LMPD’s data for immigration enforcement. Documents obtained by KyCIR show police agencies from more than a dozen states pinged LMPD’s database about 1,700 times between January and mid-July 2025, using immigration-related keywords. Troutman accounted for 150 of the searches.
The practice surprised some local leaders who said sharing data for immigration enforcement could run afoul of a city ordinance that limits how LMPD can assist with federal immigration efforts. Under the ordinance, police can’t question, arrest or detain someone for violating civil immigration laws or undertake “any law enforcement action…for the purpose of detecting the presence of undocumented persons.”
KyCIR obtained and analyzed audits that document every time LMPD’s license plate reader data was searched from March 2022 to July 2025. The records show Troutman listed “ERO” as the reason for 123 searches in March 2025 — shortly before federal officials announced the arrests of 81 immigrants in a Kentucky operation, “coordinated out of Louisville,” as part of Trump’s “Operation Take Back America.”
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement uses the “ERO” acronym for its Enforcement and Removal Operations unit, which manages arrests and deportations of people who aren’t legally authorized to live in the U.S. ICE is leading President Donald Trump’s effort to deport millions of immigrants, using increasingly aggressive tactics that are being challenged in street protests and in court.
In late October, KyCIR asked Sgt. Matt Sanders, an LMPD spokesperson, about Troutman’s searches. In response, he said the agency was “reviewing this matter.”
This week, Sanders confirmed LMPD’s Professional Standards Unit opened a formal inquiry. Troutman is not on leave while the investigation is underway.
KyCIR also found more than two dozen searches by Troutman that listed “immigration” as the reason. Sanders in September said these searches were actually related “to criminal activity, not immigration status” and LMPD officials “found no evidence of misuse.”
Amber Duke, executive director of the ACLU of Kentucky, said she’s glad LMPD is looking into Troutman’s “ERO” inquiries and hopes the public will eventually receive a report about “what exactly was going on with these searches.”
Many Louisvillians are living in fear of immigration enforcement, Duke said, and fostering local public safety requires trust and partnership between the community and their police. When there’s concern that local officers may be involved in immigration enforcement, it “breaks trust in the community, which ultimately makes the community less safe.”
“Certainly I think, you know, any effort that they are going to go to to ensure that this technology is being used within the policies and procedures of the department is a good thing,” she said.
Louisville Metro Council Member JP Lyninger, a District 6 Democrat, said he thinks Troutman’s searches clearly violate the city ordinance.
“Opening an investigation is better than just saying there haven’t been any violations,” he said. “But that also means that we need to hold people accountable.”
He sees this as a line in the sand: Either the city must enforce this local law and ensure officers aren’t aiding ICE, or Louisville Metro Government should repeal the rule.
“But we can’t have a law that we aren’t enforcing,” he said. “Especially one, in my opinion, that says to our neighbors, ‘We stand with you. We support you. And regardless of your immigration status, you have value here in Louisville.’”
Lyninger would like to see Louisville Inspector General Ed Harness review this situation, as “an independent, trusted voice.”
LMPD’s fleet of license plate reader cameras – which photograph passing cars on city streets – come from a company called Flock Safety.
Flock lets law enforcement agencies nationwide share access to the data gathered by cameras in their communities. Recent reporting by 404 Media and other news outlets indicate some local and state police helped ICE by doing Flock searches for them or granting federal agents access to their data.
KyCIR’s review of LMPD’s Flock data also found an agency listed as “ATF Louisville KY” made 120 searches of LMPD’s Flock data using immigration-related keywords, most commonly “ERO.” The searches happened around the same time as Troutman’s. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, or ATF for short, runs a Louisville field office, but a spokesperson declined to comment due to the federal government shutdown.
