LOUISVILLE, Ky. — The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) laid out it's progress in the consent decree with the city of Louisville and the Louisville Metro Police Department (LMPD) Tuesday at the fifth DOJ community meeting.
The U.S. attorney general announced the federal consent decree last March after the DOJ identified patterns of discrimination and use of excessive force within the police department.
Community members showed up to the Northeast Regional Library with some very specific questions for DOJ officials.
“The NAACP has been sort of a watchdog in terms of things that have been happening with LMPD for a number of years," Raymond Burse, the first vice president of Louisville Branch NAACP, said. "When the DOJ issued their report, we’ve continued to monitor. We’re really interested in what’s going to be in the consent decree, how it’s going to be implemented, and what will be the community’s role in terms of that implementation.”
Community members at the meeting addressed DOJ officials face-to-face. They asked specific questions about heightened accountability within the department and for individual officers, cross training and DEI professional development and community advisory boards.
"Louisville is so stratified geographically that we don't have interactions across communities," Burse said. "These advisory groups, I think, should be cross community groups because different people bring different perspectives to the table as they look at things."
Burse, who has attended all the community meetings, wanted to know where the DOJ and the City of Louisville were at in the consent degree process.
A DOJ official confirmed that they were still in the "active negotiation" stages.
"It’s been almost a year and a half since the DOJ report came out and we’re still sort of piddling around," Burse said. "At this stage in the ball game, we're looking for specifics – what has been agreed to, what has not been agreed to, what's the implementation, all the consideration for who the monitor's going to be."
Meanwhile, the department is keeping details of consent decree negotiations with the city confidential, something that is supposed to take several more months.
A consent decree is a settlement with the federal government, a document listing changes Louisville will be required to spend millions of its own dollars annually to fund. The goal is to make LMPD more equitable.
WHAS11 reported on a city under a consent decree for more than 10 years. New Orleans leaders describe the agreement as a double-edged sword -- on one hand resulting in a more honorable police department and changed culture, but also an agency gutted by an officer shortage and persistently high levels of violence.
Anyone with questions, or requests for a link, can contact Community.Louisville@usdoj.gov or call 844-920-1460.
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