The mother of Breonna Taylor blamed Louisville’s mayor for “dragging his feet” in consent decree negotiations, hours after the U.S. Department of Justice announced it would drop the agreement.
“This dismissal is the result of the Mayoral Administration dragging by its feet to finalize the consent decree,” said Tamika Palmer in a written statement provided by the family’s attorney. “The investigation concluded in August of 2023 and it took well over a year, at the tail end of President Biden’s administration for Mayor Greenberg to sign off on the decree.”
The consent decree between the Justice Department and Louisville Metro Police intended to serve as a guideline for policing reform following the police killing of Taylor in 2020. Her death, combined with those of George Floyd and Ahmaud Arbery, sparked nationwide racial justice protests, and contributed to the Department of Justice investigation that found a history of discriminatory policing in Louisville.
The searing DOJ report from 2023 detailed LMPD’s discriminatory policing, several use of force incidents and First Amendment violations.
Palmer, community leaders, racial justice advocates and some city officials say they are disappointed with the DOJ’s action. Others say they are not surprised.
“This city deserves true reform and the city needs to be committed to following through on every single item that they agreed to in the decree,” Palmer said. “It is up to the residents of this city to hold the police department and the Mayor accountable - and the best way to do that is through our votes.”
Ending the consent decree is “leaving communities at risk of continued misconduct,” said American Civil Liberties Union Kentucky spokesperson Angela Cooper.
ACLU-KY is hoping to collect a slew of public records from LMPD, including incident reports regarding use of force and traffic stops, performance review data and any disciplinary actions towards its officers.
While the federal consent decree has come to an end, Greenberg and the Louisville police chief said Wednesday that reforms would still happen locally.
Greenberg and LMPD Chief Paul Humphrey are planning to institute a “community commitment” agreement. Greenberg said the plan will incorporate all the objectives outlined in the consent decree and will ask for community input and an independent monitor.
Louisville Metro’s inspector general said he and his team have discussed how the city will move on with police reform without a court-mandated consent decree.
“It’s not a surprise,” said Ed Harness, inspector general. “We’ve been anticipating it for a while now.”
Transparency, accountability and change
Harness often begins his day by checking the federal court records for Louisville’s consent decree case, looking for newly filed documents.
But he didn’t do that Wednesday.
Instead, he went into a staff meeting where he and his team discussed how the city would move on with police reform. Soon after, that happened.
To get ahead of this moment, Harness and his team prepared a proposed agreement that he will present to the Citizens Review and Accountability Board next week. It outlines steps LMPD can take to make the reforms federal officials recommended in the proposed consent decree.
The agreement is “verbatim” to the plan Greenberg announced Wednesday. Harness said he will also pick three areas to “evaluate the progress in some of the misconduct areas.” He would not give details on those areas, opting to wait until next Tuesday’s meeting of the Citizens Review and Accountability Board.
Asked if he has faith LMPD will complete reforms outlined in Greenberg’s plan, Harness said “well, we’re all going to work towards it.”
“There’s certainly going to be bumps in the road,” he said. “But I think the mayor taking the entire document and proposing it shows good faith.”
Community input on reforms
Taylor U’Sellis is an organizer for the 490 Project, a local social justice organization that advocates for policing reform. She said the community commitment plan is missing something: the community.
“That is a huge misstep on the administration's part, because that is where the real change will happen, when the community can get involved,” U’Sellis said. “That is when the community and the police can build a bridge, if that's even possible at this point, to understand one another. So we are sad that that's not part of it.”
Bishop Dennis Lyons is community leader, a pastor at Gospel Missionary Church and a longtime ambassador between Louisville’s Black residents and the police. He said it's important to include Black Louisvillians in the conversations around policing reform.
“The Black community has been hurt so much,” he said. “We really ain't gonna believe too much that we hear, but until we see [change]. And that's what the police need to do.”
Louisville Urban League CEO Lyndon Pryor had a meeting with his team Tuesday to discuss how the community could hold LMPD and Metro Government accountable. Pryor said the news accelerates those plans.
“We have the opportunity to do this in a way that is far more impactful and positive for this community long-term, than we might have had underneath an actual consent decree,” he said.
Pryor raised several questions about Greenberg’s plan. He said the community needs to be on the Community Safety Commission, a committee of representatives Greenberg will pick to give feedback on the reform plans.
“That committee needs to have teeth,” Pryor said. “They need to actually be able to function in a way that can shift what is happening with regard to the [local version of the consent decree] and what's happening inside of LMPD.”
Metro Council weighs in
During Wednesday’s press conference, Humphrey said he’ll lose his job if the department doesn’t meet the reforms.
“There are real consequences if we fail,” he said. “If we don’t build community trust, we don’t keep this community safer, [the mayor] will fire me.”
Metro Council member Tammy Hawkins, a District 1 Democrat, said that makes sense, but he shouldn’t be the first to go. Hawkins, who chairs the council’s majority Democratic caucus and Public Safety Committee said she wants a police department that holds itself accountable.
She said it’s Humphrey’s job to get rid of “bad actors.”
“He needs to start,” she said.
Metro Council member J.P. Lyninger, a District 6 Democrat, said the council has a role to ensure police accountability since the consent decree will not be court-ordered. He pointed to the council’s Government Oversight, Audit and Appointments Committee as a crucial arm to provide oversight of any plan to reform local police.
“We must use the power of government accountability to investigate whether or not we are meeting the goals of the consent decree,” he said.
Lyninger said he’s disappointed to see the federal government drop the consent decree, and he lamented Greenberg’s administration for slow-walking the process that led up to entering into the agreement last year.
“The findings were announced two years ago,” he said. “If we had more speedily entered into agreement with the Department of Justice, this would already be on the books and we wouldn’t be talking about this today.”
But Greenberg’s decision to hire an independent monitor, despite the consent decree’s demise, speaks to his commitment to “up our game on our own and show people how this can be done,” said Metro Council member Ken Herndon, a District 4 Democrat.
He said federal officials gave Louisville an opportunity to skirt reform efforts, but local leaders didn’t.
“The fact that the feds didn’t do this and gave us two back doors and we didn’t take them gives us an opportunity to lead the nation and show we’re going to do this anyway,” he said.
The Metro Council’s Republican caucus welcomed the DOJ’s decision to dismiss the city’s consent decree.
“In December, we argued that efforts to bring real and lasting reforms to policing within our community is best accomplished by persons closely associated to this community rather than out-of-town, federally appointed persons who benefit from a slow and more costly consent decree, and who have no accountability to the people of Louisville,” they wrote in an emailed statement.
Roberto Roldan contributed to this report.
