Louisville officials have committed to moving forward with the 250-page list of policing reforms they negotiated with the federal government, regardless of whether the agreement gets a judge’s final approval. But community leaders invested in the consent decree process still have questions about what a local reform regime might look like.
There have been signs in recent months that the proposed consent decree between Louisville Metro and the U.S. Department of Justice may not go into effect. The federal judge assigned to the case has been hesitant to sign off on it. And leaked memos from the White House said President Donald Trump “may wish to reconsider” decrees signed in the waning months of the previous administration, including Louisville’s.
With the consent decree’s future in limbo, various community groups are putting forward their ideas for what it could look like if Louisville goes it alone.
A coalition of mostly Black-led organizations called A Path Forward put out an open letter earlier this month asking city leaders to establish “a robust community oversight board” and ensure any effort to implement the decree without the federal government is transparent and accountable to residents.
“Louisville must forge ahead,” the letter says. “The cost of inaction is more lives lost, more families broken, and more trust eroded between the police and the communities they serve.”
A Path Forward, which was created after the police killing of Breonna Taylor in 2020, also called on the city to move forward with hiring an independent monitor to oversee the effort. That demand has been echoed by some Metro Council members and other community groups.
Responding to some of the speculation about the future of the consent decree, Democratic Mayor Craig Greenberg issued a statement last month saying he and the Louisville Metro Police Department “remained committed to implementing the reforms set forth in the consent decree we signed with the DOJ.”
This week, Greenberg went a step further, telling LPM News that Louisville will proceed with “having an independent third-party monitor to provide accountability and transparency, and continuing community engagement and input.”
It was the first time the mayor said publicly that the city would seek out an independent expert to oversee its reform plans, regardless of what happens in federal court.
Monitoring reform plans
Under the consent decree, Louisville Metro would hire an independent monitor in collaboration with the DOJ. The monitor is usually a team of people with expertise and experience in policing and parsing data about officer interactions, training outcomes and other metrics.
The monitoring team would be selected through a competitive bidding process. When announcing the proposed agreement, Greenberg said the public would have a chance to meet with the finalists before any decision was made. The consent decree also required certain information from prospective monitors be posted on the city’s website and a 30-day public feedback period.
If the city undertakes reform on its own, it could follow a similar bidding process for selecting an independent monitor. But one potential difference is that, under the federal consent decree, the monitor would be appointed for a two-year period while local law requires contracts to be renewed annually. And it would ultimately be up to Metro Council, not the mayor, to approve any contract with a monitoring team.
District 19 Council Member Anthony Piagentini said implementing the consent decree without the feds could be an opportunity to address concerns about the cost to taxpayers. The proposed agreement capped monitoring costs at $1.4 million per year, which Piagentini said he believes is unnecessarily high.
“I don’t think it has to be a fraction of the cost that the federal government was telling us,” Piagentini said. “That is typical federal government, the-wrench-is-like-$20,0000-type accounting.”
Metro Council’s Republican Caucus issued a statement the day Greenberg signed the proposed consent decree indicating their skepticism. They said they were hopeful it would be different from other cities’ agreements that they claimed resulted in “depletion of ranks” within police departments and “a rise in crime and violence.”
Piagentini, who now chairs the Republican Caucus, said he’s not opposed to policing reform, but he would prefer to keep the effort at the local level.
“I’ve researched how Baltimore went, Seattle, all those other places, it was horrible,” he said. “The DOJ isn’t the one that made it better, it was the local governments committed to the process that made it better. So, if I have an alternative between the DOJ and local, I’m picking local.”
Advocates for police reform say they are less concerned about the cost of a third-party monitor than making sure any plan to implement the decree locally has accountability built in.
Lyndon Pryor, the president and CEO of the Louisville Urban League, said a reform process that lacks oversight and community involvement would be a mistake. Pryor said city leaders cannot be allowed to police themselves.
“That is why DOJ was here, because LMPD has failed the community,” he said. “So, to turn around and go through this process without the community would be to undermine the entire intent.”
The Louisville Urban League was one of the founding organizations of the coalition A Path Forward.
District 4 Metro Council Member Ken Herndon, a Democrat, has echoed calls for a third-party monitor. In an interview with LPM News, Herndon said he appreciated the “strong statement” from Greenberg in support of the reform agreement.
He said Louisville has an opportunity to do something no other city has done: implement a consent decree without a state or federal government looking over its shoulder.
“I think we can only gain the full trust of the community if we do this,” Herndon said.
Who replaces the judge?
Another major component of the traditional consent decree process is the fact that it’s overseen by a federal judge, who has the power to enforce it. If the monitor determines the city isn’t making adequate progress, or is refusing to implement certain measures, the judge can hold local officials in contempt.
It’s not clear who, if anyone, could replace the position of the judge in the case of a self-administered reform plan.
Herndon said he thinks it could be as simple as city leaders agreeing to abide by any decisions the monitoring team makes, especially if the team includes someone like a retired federal judge.
“A retired federal judge from somewhere that everyone admires, no matter what side of the aisle they come from,” he said. “I think that kind of figure would be essential.”
Other ideas that have been floated in recent weeks include empowering a community oversight board to enforce the terms of the consent decree.
In its open letter, A Path Forward sketches out a rough idea of what the board could look like. It would include people “from impacted communities, activists, civil rights leaders, legal experts, and everyday citizens.”
“What we’re essentially proposing is that a community oversight committee be established that then functions in place of the judge, that has the authority to hear from the monitor and then say back to the monitor and the city, ‘Hey, yes, this is going well or no, it’s not and we need to change course,’” Pryor said.
A Path Forward’s letter suggests that the existing Civilian Review and Accountability Board could serve this function. The board is currently tasked with investigating allegations of police misconduct with the help of the city’s Inspector General.
Former Democratic state Rep. Attica Scott, who now leads the social justice advocacy group Forward Justice Action Network, said she sees a couple problems with that idea. First, the Civilian Review and Accountability Board is a volunteer board with people who have limited capacity. And the Kentucky General Assembly has refused to give more power to the board, like allowing it to subpoena witnesses.
Scott said there are many experts and academics out there who would be happy to talk with city officials about creating an accountability model that works.
“Louisville just has to make it a political priority,” she said.
Scott said that what’s important to remember, at the end of the day, is how Louisville ended up here in the first place. She pointed to the many times Louisville police have killed civilians, people like Michael Newby and Deng Manyoun.
"This isn't something that's come out of one incident, but it's come out of decades of violence and misuse and abuse from Louisville Metro Police Department and Louisville Metro Government,” she said.
The DOJ report that preceded the consent decree negotiations alleged that LMPD officers routinely use excessive force and violate people’s civil rights, especially Black residents.
For now, the consent decree Louisville signed with the DOJ is continuing to move slowly through the court system. But if it ultimately fails, city leaders and residents are saying they don’t want it to fall by the wayside. They want it to be an opportunity to do something better.
