TOP-TO-BOTTOM EXTERNAL REVIEW OF LMPD AND INVEST/DIVEST

Updated: July 24, 2020

We incorporate our earlier demands and request a top-to-bottom review of LMPD. While we find the Mayor’s request to be painfully delayed, we recognize that this is a mandatory step. Our police department has lost the confidence of the people to police itself. Therefore, we must insist that an outside—non-traditional—agency lead this work. This must also include civilians and an extensive cadre of African American chiefs and retired officers from across the country. 

We are addressing the long and challenging history LMPD has had with Louisville’s Black community. This means we are standing up against aggressive policing practices, abuse, an absence of transparency, and cover-ups that have plagued this department and eroded public trust. We demand investments in the education, health and safety of Black people, instead of investments in the criminalizing, caging, and harming of Black people.

LMPD has a long and difficult history with the Black community. Aggressive policing practices, abuse, an absence of transparency, and cover-ups have plagued this department and eroded public trust. The most recent killings of Breonna Taylor and David McAtee make this clear. Even prior to their deaths, it was clear to us that LMPD needed change. The police culture that sanctioned these killings—that we know would not have occurred in St. Matthews, Middletown or anywhere in East Louisville—must change immediately. 

Divestment strategies have existed for a very long time in this country and have taken on a number of variations, including what we are now seeing in Minneapolis, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. It is time for Louisville to begin investing in qualified first responders and reducing police presence and influence in our personal lives, community affairs, and city/organizational budgets. We understand that partner agencies have and will submit additional information for your consideration and we support them.

To that end, and in addition to a complete overhaul of LMPD’s organizational structure, protocols, and practices, we are demanding within the next 30 days, a plan for community review that demonstrates how [Louisville Metro Government] will divest funds earmarked for LMPD and reinvest them in community resources that are proven to lead to safer cities. We have included [resources below] to help you in crafting a solid plan. We understand that a budget has been passed. That is not a concern for us. You know the opportunities available, and we expect every tool, loophole, and strategy available to be utilized. We cannot wait until next fiscal year. At a minimum, it makes sense for you and Metro Council to reexamine the overtime budget for police and redirect those resources at once (Response to LMG, pg. 2).

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Resources

  • Oregon Cares Fund | It is worth noting that Oregon has set up an Oregon Cares Fund targeting investment in the Black community with funds from the CARES Act Coronavirus Relief Fund. They say, “our health depends on our leaders’ ability to see problems, understand them, and implement proven solutions that keep Oregonians safe. The Coronavirus pandemic has exacerbated existing disparities for the Black community.” We agree with this statement and would go further, as we also recognize that we are facing a pandemic in police brutality as well.

  • Divest/Invest: From Criminalization to Thriving Communities | “…[I]n this moment [divest/invest is] such a key intervention in addressing not just the symptoms that need to be faced but the root causes of them…. invest/divest is the idea that as we’re making reforms, as we’re pushing policy changes, as we’re overseeing shifts in practice, that we pay special attention to how money is being spent, and we demand a divestment from the systems that harm our communities…” – Marbre Stahly-Butts of Law for Black Lives

  • Freedom to Thrive: Reimagining Safety & Security in Our Communities | This report examines racial disparities, policing landscapes, and budgets in twelve jurisdictions across the country, comparing the city and county spending priorities with those of community organizations and their members. While many community members, supported by research and established best practices, assert that increased spending on police do not make them safer, cities and counties continue to rely overwhelmingly on policing and incarceration spending while under-resourcing less damaging, more fair, and more effective safety initiatives.

  • The Cost of Mass Incarceration and Criminalization, and How Justice Reinvestment Can Build a Better Future for All | This report asks how our choices that resulted in the creation of an immense justice system might have been different, and how our communities, and our country, might have looked different as a result. But, ultimately, this report is less about the last 30 years than it is about the next 30 years, and whether we choose to double-down on the existing approach, or instead decide to “right-size” our justice system and make smarter investments to create more safe, healthy, and thriving communities around the country.