A4 EZ RE THE WASHINGTON POST.MONDAY, NOVEMBER 22 , 2021
ty services, before ducking out as
the parishioners sampled fried
chicken from Dino’s.
“Even in the 2nd Division,
citizens want the police there,”
Healey said. “They just want us to
do it the right way.”Urgent need, shifting climate
On a late September morning,
a mile from the church, 16-year-
old Tyree Smith was killed, and
two other teens injured, after a
gunman fired on a group of
students at a city bus stop. Police
said the assailant drove a stolen
Jeep Cherokee, then set it on fire.
At a news conference, Shields
warned of escalating gang vio-
lence among teens and vowed to
“bang the drum loudly” to con-
vince school board leaders that
the system “has to have its own
police department.”
Her remarks earned rebukes
from civic leaders who don’t
want police inside schools and
say the city should focus instead
on investing in housing, educa-
tion and social programs.
“What we’re saying is, ‘Listen,
you can’t have a community that
has been redlined out of opportu-
nity for so long and think police
are the only answer,’ ” said the
Urban League’s Reynolds.
Shields emphasized in an in-
terview that she does not want
her officers in school buildings
either. Rather, she envisions a
separate pool of resource officers
trained to identify brewing con-
flicts. Fischer, meanwhile, re-
cently proposed spending
$15.8 million on violence preven-
tion initiatives and $15 million
on youth programs.
Louisville Metro Council
member Jessica Green, who sup-
ported Shields’s hiring and has
praised her performance, said
she doesn’t want school resource
officers either. But she acknowl-
edged that Shields is in a tough
spot: “There is nothing she can
say or do right now that will
appease every single faction.”
Next fall, the city will elect a
mayor to succeed Fischer, who is
statutorily barred from seeking a
fourth term. At least one declared
candidate — pastor Timothy
Findley Jr. of the Kingdom Fel-
lowship church, who was arrest-
ed during the social justice dem-
onstrations — has said he would
replace Shields, citing her “empty
words, without substance” and
close ties to Fischer. Other candi-
dates could do the same.
Federal officials say consent
decrees, with their legal require-
ments, are designed to withstand
such political upheaval. But po-
litical transitions have compli-
cated reform efforts in other
cities, as new leaders pursue
their own agendas. For example,
Seattle is heading into its 10th
year under a federal consent
decree, a process that has
spanned four police chiefs, three
elected mayors and two federal
monitors.
Fischer said he is ready to
press for a more detailed timeta-
ble for Louisville.
“We’re at an inflection point,”
he said. “I’m hoping that whatev-
er agreement we have with the
DOJ is done while I’m still mayor.
This is a terrible thing to hand off
to the next mayor.”
[email protected]engage with the citizens on your
beat. We may have to stop provid-
ing some services if we are con-
tinuing to lose officers at this
rate.”
Shields expressed empathy for
the officers, saying they have
experienced “a lot of PTSD and
very strong emotions from last
year,” which saw weeks of pro-
tests, scores of arrests and the
fatal shooting of a shop owner by
Kentucky National Guard troops
who were helping police enforce
a curfew.
“It’s a morale issue when peo-
ple feel that they’re hated,” she
said. “This is not to discount the
[social justice] activism; it’s not
to discount the movement. It’s
saying, as someone who’s trying
to get this department upright,
engaged and positive, I have a lot
of folks who are really wrestling
with a lot of things. And there’s
not a quick path forward.”Stray bullets and ‘wheelies’
For Maj. Steven Healey, who
took charge of Louisville’s 2nd
Division in June even though he
was eligible to retire, the way
forward is to rebuild relation-
ships in the community. It has
not been easy. The division is
down to 53 officers — 19 short of
full staffing.
Residents say they want more
officer patrols and more resourc-
es to reduce shootings and ad-
dress lesser concerns.
Healey said he welcomes any
funding the federal probe may
bring. In the meantime, he used a
recent radio appearance to tout a
dip in homicides in the 2nd
Division, and then joined the
radio host, Bishop Dennis V.
Lyons of the Gospel Missionary
Church, for a meeting with pa-
rishioners a short drive away.
At the radio station, Lyons
pressed Healey to work more
closely with church leaders and
help protect Dino’s, a popular
neighborhood food mart, which
city government leaders have
sought to close over allegations
that it draws drug dealers and
prostitutes to the area.
After the show, Healey ac-
knowledged that the bishop had
made a good point. “Do we want
to shut down another business or
make a safe neighborhood store
in a community that doesn’t have
many?” Healey said.
Lyons’s church is small and
aging. He placed a mailbox out-
side the church with the lettering
“Community Crime Tip Box,”
hoping to collect anonymous in-
formation that he could pass on
to police. But he said someone
recently left the box mangled
beyond repair.
Inside, a man complained to
Healey about “kids doing whee-
lies” on the streets. Another said
drivers sped through stop signs.
A woman said stray bullets
pierced her home. While the
summertime protests demanded
sweeping police reforms, the dis-
cussion at the church reflected
more prosaic, day-to-day con-
cerns.
Healey told the residents that
police were adding speed camer-
as and considering expanding
the “shot-spotter” system, which
detects gunfire and alerts police.
He distributed copies of a 43-
page pamphlet listing communi-The 2021 homicide tally reached
170 the week of Nov. 14, with just
36 percent of the killings solved
so far.
Police say assailants are in-
creasingly using stolen vehicles
to carry out shootings, lessening
the chance they will be caught.
Shields said that is one reason
she has condoned high-speed
chases in Louisville: “If we do not
allow the pursuit of these cars,
the shooters get loose.”
The city offered police officers
and sergeants a contract that
included 12 percent raises over
two years but would require drug
testing for officers involved in
critical incidents and lengthen
the period the city retains com-
plaints about officers from
90 days to two years.
The union rejected the propos-
al, with leaders saying the salary
increases were not enough to
reverse attrition or boost morale
that has been low for months. An
outside audit in January found
that 75 percent of Louisville offi-
cers said they would leave to join
another department if possible.
“We think it’s having a huge
impact,” union spokesman and
retired officer Dave Mutchler
said of the department’s vacancy
rate. “It’s not just about stopping
crime, but there’s less time toleader in seven months, succeed-
ing two interim chiefs and Police
Chief Steve Conrad, who was
fired during the 2020 protests.
The leadership tumult has
harmed morale; union leaders
say it’s a primary reason 300 po-
sitions on the force remain va-
cant.
“Officers don’t know who to
believe, who to trust,” said the
federal official close to the inves-
tigation. “It leaves them in a poor
position as it relates to under-
standing what their focus should
be, what their priorities should
be, how they should be engaging
with communities.”
As part of an effort to win the
confidence of her officers,
Shields announced that she and
her executive team would partici-
pate in patrol shifts, getting an
up-close view of the challenges
facing her department. One
glimpse came the night of
June 22. Shields was in a squad
car driven by Lt. Bryan Edelen
that fell in behind a cruiser
pursuing a reported stolen vehi-
cle on a freeway.
In Atlanta, Shields had banned
such high-speed chases over fear
of endangering the public. But
Louisville had 173 criminal homi-
cides last year — obliterating the
previous record of 117 set in 2016.carrying out a no-knock warrant
at her apartment.
Already, investigators have
voiced concerns about the dilapi-
dated state of Louisville’s police
facilities, where they said some
officers have been asked to sign
liability waivers to work in build-
ings with code violations. Con-
sultants warned in 2018 that the
aging police headquarters should
be torn down over work-safety
hazards; Shields and her execu-
tive staff are only now relocating.
“They made a good point,” Lt.
Col. Paul Humphrey, the assis-
tant chief, said of the criticism by
the feds. “How can officers expect
to be held to a high standard if
their facilities reflect that no one
cares about them?”
The issue, he said, illustrates a
broader challenge of police re-
form: It requires investments
that city leaders are often unwill-
ing to make. Humphrey pointed
to the dearth of social services in
Louisville that he said means
police officers — rather than
mental health counselors — must
deal with mentally ill suspects,
without adequate training in
how to de-escalate such situa-
tions. “When there are no other
resources to respond, who steps
in? The police,” he said. “And
that’s of no ill intent, but it comes
to that because problems fester.”
State officials investigating
last month’s shooting said three
Louisville officers responded to a
911 call about a domestic distur-
bance. Body-camera footage
shows the officers attempting to
escort a man, identified as Ivan
Foster, 37, from a woman’s apart-
ment.
The footage shows police
warning Foster, who grabs a gun
and fires a shot, which authori-
ties said struck a police radio on
an officer’s hip. Foster then yells
“I’ll kill him!” and another offi-
cer, identified as Timothy Lan-
ham, fires fatal shots. Lanham
has been placed on paid adminis-
trative leave.‘Not a quick path forward’
Shields took over the 1,300-of-
ficer department as its fourthwith so much violence and guns
on the streets, you just know
there’s a likelihood of this kind of
thing happening.”
Twenty months after Taylor
was killed, the dynamics in Lou-
isville highlight the predicament
of a first-year chief whose depart-
ment has become a testing
ground in the Biden administra-
tion’s effort to demonstrate that
federal intervention can lead to
sustainable improvements in po-
licing.
Like many parts of the country,
the city is grappling with a spike
in killings and a large number of
officer vacancies, dampening
support for a dramatic revamp of
public safety. City leaders are
weighing expensive reforms,
even as the federal probe promis-
es to stretch for months.
At the same time, activists are
clamoring for more accountabili-
ty. Two officers were fired after
the Taylor killing, and one agreed
to retire. One officer was charged
with “wanton endangerment,”
but none were charged with fir-
ing the fatal shots. Area activists
said the FBI continues to gather
information about the shooting.
“There has been no closure on
Breonna Taylor,” said Sadiqa
Reynolds, chief executive of the
Louisville Urban League. “I don’t
know if we’re doing reform right
now in Louisville. If we are, we do
not have the evidence of that yet.”
For Shields, the stakes are high
and the clock is ticking. While
police chiefs in some cities have
taken an antagonistic posture
toward Justice Department in-
vestigations, Shields has been
welcoming. She says the inter-
vention should complement her
own reform efforts, even as
probes in other cities have pro-
duced frustration and mixed re-
sults.
On the day investigators ar-
rived last month, Louisville offi-
cials unveiled a four-year,
$35 million proposal to improve
policing, including hiring more
internal auditors, increasing offi-
cer training and establishing a
police accountability bureau.
Mayor Greg Fischer (D) said the
funding will come from the feder-
al stimulus.
But there is no guarantee those
efforts will satisfy federal author-
ities. The Justice Department’s
final report, expected late next
year, will probably result in a
court-mandated consent decree,
requiring more costly changes
and years of federal oversight.
And next fall, voters will poten-
tially render judgment on the
state of reforms when they elect a
new mayor, with public safety
certain to be a top issue.
“They are clearly going to find
patterns they find problematic
and seek assurances that these
are truly addressed,” Shields said
of the Justice Department. “The
reality of it is, when you’re in this
space, you’ve lost the ability to
leverage.”
Opening their records
The visit to Louisville in late
October was the third for investi-
gators since Attorney General
Merrick Garland announced the
civil probe in April. He has
launched similar investigations
in Minneapolis and Phoenix.
Louisville’s team is led by Paul
Killebrew, special counsel in Jus-
tice’s civil rights division, and
includes officials from Washing-
ton and the local U.S. attorney’s
office, along with two former
police chiefs from other jurisdic-
tions.
In a statement, Assistant At-
torney General Kristen Clarke
said the Justice Department will
“work to expeditiously address
any pattern or practice of unlaw-
ful conduct that may be identi-
fied.” The review spans the past
five years.
Federal investigators have ac-
companied local officers on pa-
trol duty and homicide investiga-
tions, toured facilities, and inter-
viewed police staff, city officials
and civic activists. Shields’s team
gave them laptop computers that
can access the department’s vast
system of computerized files and
thousands of hours of body-cam-
era footage.
Matt Golden, Louisville’s chief
of public services, said investiga-
tors told local officials that a
single digital folder contained
more information than all the
data the Justice Department
compiled in its probe of the much
larger Chicago Police Depart-
ment from 2015 to 2017.
“Louisville has been very open
to us. They’ve provided an enor-
mous amount of data,” said one
federal official close to the inves-
tigation, who spoke on the condi-
tion of anonymity because the
probe is ongoing.
The team is reviewing dozens
of police use-of-force incidents,
including all officer-involved
shootings from 2017 through this
year, and past use of no-knock
warrants, which were banned
after police shot Taylor while
LOUISVILLE FROM A
As Justice probe plays out, mayor and police chief press for change in Louisville
PHOTOS BY LUKE SHARRETT FOR THE WASHINGTON POST
Louisville Metro Police Maj. Steven Healey talks with Louisville Defender newspaper publisher Clarence Leslie during a street sign unveiling on Oct. 26.While police officials in some cities have been antagonistic toward Justice Department investigations,
Louisville Police Chief Erika Shields has been welcoming. She says the action should complement her
own reform efforts, even as probes in other cities have produced frustration and mixed results.Activist Nancy Cavalcante attends a Louisville Metro Council
meeting last month. Mayor Greg Fischer (D) has proposed spending
millions on violence prevention initiatives and youth programs.