By Katrina Nickell, WDRB
Louisville Mayor Craig Greenberg said his team is in Washington D.C. this week to continue consent decree negotiations face-to-face.
At Monday night’s Citizens of Louisville Organized and United Together (CLOUT) meeting, Greenberg elaborated on the ongoing negotiation process.
“I’m as eager as anyone else in this room, anyone else in the city, to complete this process, to move forward, and to just focus not on negotiating a document, but on meaningful work of reform,” he said.
Greenberg also said he’s spoken personally to U.S. Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clark several times.
The negotiation process began in February, 11 months after the DOJ found the Louisville Metro Police Department engaged in practices that violated federal law for years.
The federal investigation into LMPD cited 63 different incidents of alleged misconduct, according to an appendix of a 90-page report the U.S. Department of Justice released following their roughly two-year investigation into LMPD. By 2022, at least nine officers had been convicted in federal court and several more cases are pending.
Examples of excessive force provided in the first section of the appendix include the use of neck restraints and police dogs against “people who pose no threat,” an “unreasonable and unsafe” use of tasers, using takedowns, strikes and bodily force “disproportionate to threat or resistance,” and escalating encounters, leading to excessive force.
The DOJ ordered Louisville’s police department to enter a consent decree. The oversight agreement sets tangible requirements for change, metrics to measure improvement and timelines to achieve them. It’s all approved by a federal judge, legally binding and then overseen by a independent monitor who must regularly report progress or any problems to the public.
Greenberg has previously said the agreement would be finalized early Fall, but did not specify an end date Monday night.
The negotiations have been confidential, leaving the public in the dark. As election day approaches, the future of consent decrees are in question.
Under previous President Donald Trump’s administration, then-U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions put a halt on consent decrees.
The President Joe Biden White House re-launched the police reform tool and LMPD was one of the first DOJ cases, sparked by the police killing of Breonna Taylor.
At LMPD’s bi-weekly press conference on Oct. 16, WDRB asked if the prolong negotiation was strategic, and if the department was waiting out the election, knowing if Trump wins the level of oversight could be reduced or even go away.
LMPD simply said, “the answer is no.”
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