Earlier this month, four people were injured inside Lenny’s Lounge cigar bar in the Klondike neighborhood. Two weeks after the incident, Louisville Metro Police officials said officers arrested a Louisville man in connection to the shooting.
Lt. Matt Chaudoin with LMPD’s Major Crimes Unit said police arrested 32-year-old Ezekiel Dean Monday in connection with the Jan. 4 shooting at Lenny’s Lounge. At a press conference Tuesday, Chaudoin said he credits LMPD’s use of its license plate reader cameras for locating Dean.
Dean was charged with three counts of first-degree assault and one count of possession of a handgun as a convicted felon. A judge set Dean’s bond for $250,000.
According to LMPD’s Matthew Sanders Jan. 4, four people were shot at the cigar lounge. Three of the victims were between 18 to 21 years old and the other was 17 years old.
Recent court records only list three victims in the case. Chaudoin did not provide any information on the other victim, but he said the investigation is still ongoing.
“It was a very complicated scene with a lot of casings and projectiles recovered,” Chaudoin said. “That's something that we are working to determine.”
After the shooting, District 10 Metro Council Member Josie Raymond called for Louisville Metro's Alcohol and Beverage Control to revoke Lenny’s Lounge liquor license. The cigar bar had been open for less than a year, and ABC placed an immediate pause of alcohol sales at the location the day after the shooting.
According to an ABC spokesperson Tuesday, Lenny’s Lounge shut down after the building’s landlord terminated the cigar bar’s lease, and ABC found multiple “violations to Codes & Regulations Public Nuisance Division.”
Flock cameras
Chaudoin said police used Flock cameras’ license plate reader technology to track down the rental car Dean was driving after he left the cigar bar.
“The [Lenny's Lounge] case is just one prime example where we take evidence from the scene, coupled with witness statements and video evidence .... and we combine that with the intelligence that we receive from the Flock system to create actionable intelligence,” Chaudoin said.
Since 2021, LMPD has installed nearly 200 of these cameras across the city, according to the Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting. Police officials have not disclosed the exact locations of these devices, citing possible public safety concerns.
The cameras collect massive amounts of data about Louisville drivers, and LMPD has its own database as do University of Louisville campus police.
Last month, KyCIR reported LMPD launched an internal investigation and disciplined personnel after a DEA officer used an LMPD officer’s Flock account to search the database using immigration-related terms.
At the time, Police Chief Paul Humphrey said LMPD implemented safeguards and strengthened its password-sharing policies to prevent further incidents.
Chaudoin said the technology has been “absolutely critical” in solving violent crimes and “providing justice to victims” in Louisville.
“This is not a system that's used for public mass surveillance. We use it as an intelligence tool with specific cases in mind, looking for specific things,” he said. “We use it to tie lower-quality images that we obtain from a scene or maybe descriptions that a victim or witness provides us, we use that information to compare what we see in the Flock system.”
Some privacy experts caution that police can use the controversial technology to track anyone, not just those committing crimes.
