Louisville leaders offered little in the way of new ideas Wednesday after a woman was shot and killed while walking a child to a school bus stop in the Russell neighborhood.
Louisville police received a call of shots fired near West Chestnut and 11th Streets around 8 a.m. Wednesday. They said the woman was taken to University of Louisville Hospital downtown, where she was pronounced dead. The child she was with was uninjured.
The shooting occurred less than a week after a 15-year-old allegedly fired multiple rounds in the same area, near Central High School and Coleridge-Taylor Montessori Elementary, sending students running for cover. No one was injured in that incident.
The shootings were reminiscent of the killing of 16-year-old Tyree Smith in 2023, who was shot at a bus stop about one mile west on Chestnut. An LPM News investigation found the school district had been alerted to safety concerns in the area but failed to take action.
Asked by a reporter for LPM News what the city can do to ensure safety at school bus stops, especially those along West Chestnut, Louisville Mayor Craig Greenberg said the city would “continue to be vigilant.”
“To put this in perspective, there are about 40,000 bus stops if you look at morning and afternoon bus routes in this community,” he said during a press conference in front of Metro Hall. “So, it is not practical to cover every bus stop with law enforcement.”
Greenberg said the city would “continue to look for ways that we can collaborate more, to have more presence out and about during the times when buses are picking up and dropping off kids.” He said the city would also continue its existing approaches to preventing youth violence, namely expanding after school programs.
The mayor listed off things the community and state officials can do to address the problem, solutions he’s highlighted before. He urged residents to “take ownership of your block” and share information with police about kids who are going down the wrong path and have access to a gun. He also encouraged gun owners to keep their weapons locked up and called on state and federal legislators to pass gun control laws, like universal background checks and mandatory waiting periods.
Neither Greenberg nor Louisville Metro Police Chief Paul Humphrey explained what actions they would take to address the safety concerns along West Chestnut Street specifically.
Humphrey said Wednesday that LMPD officers had an increased presence in that area over the past week in response to the Aug. 7 shooting, but he said officers decided not to be there this morning.
“They made a decision based on the fact that that conflict last week, we had already had one of the people involved [in custody],” Humphrey said. “I definitely wish we had officers out there this morning, still.”
A woman who said she lived near where the shooting took place was frustrated by Humphrey’s statements during the press conference. She asked why LMPD didn’t “have partnerships with the community” that would have let them know “it was not over” and there was still a threat to students.
After becoming frustrated with the woman — asking her “So, who did it?” and saying “LMPD did not shoot this woman” — Humphrey conceded she had “a very valid point.”
“There is a gap of communication both on the enforcement side and the pre-enforcement side” that they need to fill, Humphrey said.
The chief said the area is a focus of LMPD’s crime plan and a target area for “sustained focused improvement.” He said the department has surged proactive policing in that specific census tract.
“It is a sustained effort to make sure that we’re asking people what their needs are and we have fulfilled many needs,” Humphrey said. “There is clearly more that we have to do.”
Humphrey said he is open to ideas about how to build relationships better.
Jefferson County Public Schools Superintendent Brian Yearwood also spoke to reporters and residents at the press conference. Yearwood, who moved to Louisville in July for the job, said JCPS plans to expand opportunities to “build bridges” with communities.
“If this is not over, we should be in that community, talking to community residents to find out how can we stop the violence, how can we protect each other," Yearwood said.
That effort, in part, is being led by Gail Logan Strange, the Jefferson County Board of Education member who represents District 1, which includes Russell.
Strange told LPM News that she had already scheduled a meeting for Wednesday with school principals and the area’s Metro Council member, Ken Herndon, to discuss the bus stop shooting last week. She said this was the fourth shooting near Coleridge-Taylor Montessori Elementary since she joined the board in 2023.
“This is unacceptable and the city, JCPS, we’ve got to come together and come up with some solutions to keep our children safe,” Strange said. “This should be the least thing you should be concerned about when you leave your house to go to your bus stop.”
Strange said one of her ideas is instituting harsher penalties for people who fire a gun near a school or bus stop as a deterrent that “makes somebody think.” And she said that while she’s sympathetic to LMPD’s limited resources, police are going to have to have a car near the bus stops on West Chestnut every day.
“That’s what’s going to have to happen,” Strange said.
Shortly after the fatal shooting, police took a 15-year-old suspect into custody near Shawnee High School, but LMPD later released the kid, saying they were not the shooter.
Witnesses described the shooter as “a young Black male, dressed in a red hoodie and black sweatpants,” according to police.
Anyone with information about the shooting is asked to contact LMPD’s tip line at 502-574-5673.
