Louisville commits to police reform in Breonna Taylor case

Louisville, Kentucky, struck an agreement with the U.S. Justice Department on Thursday to reform its police department after an investigation prompted by the 2020 killing of Breonna Taylor found a pattern of discrimination against Black residents.

The agreement, known as a consent decree, commits Louisville to overhaul training and policies to focus on de-escalation and will require an independent monitor to assess the city's progress.

"This is a unique agreement that focuses on accountability and rapid improvements without ballooning costs that could compromise other investments that our city so desperately needs," Louisville Mayor Craig Greenberg said at a press conference.

The settlement is the first court-enforceable agreement the Justice Department has secured following a police oversight investigation started under Democratic President Joe Biden's administration. It must be approved by a federal judge.

The department's Civil Rights Division is working to wrap up ongoing police oversight work before Republican President-elect Donald Trump takes office on Jan. 20.

"This consent decree includes the strong medicine necessary to cure violations of law and to help promote healing in this community," Kristen Clarke, the head of the Civil Rights Division, said during the press conference.

Taylor, a 26-year-old emergency medical technician, was asleep in bed with her boyfriend on March 13, 2020, when Louisville police executing a no-knock warrant burst into her apartment. Her boyfriend fired at them believing they were intruders and police returned fire, fatally shooting Taylor.

The shooting helped touch off a nationwide protest movement over police killings of Black Americans in 2020.

The agreement requires Louisville, which has already banned no-knock warrants, to implement new measures on review of search warrant applications and the use of confidential informants.

It also requires police to develop alternatives to arrests for minor infractions, Clarke said.

The Justice Department has announced findings in four "pattern-or-practice" investigations into police departments since Trump's election last month, speeding up its prior pace. Four investigations remain pending.

Louisville had committed to reaching a consent decree with the Justice Department when the department announced its findings in March 2023.

The Justice Department curtailed civil rights investigations into police departments during Trump's first term and is expected to again in his second term.

Without consent decrees in place, it will be easier for the incoming Trump administration to scrap reform efforts, advocates have told Reuters.

"This is our path forward," Greenberg told reporters. "Regardless of who is president, regardless of who is attorney general, we have made a commitment to the people of Louisville."

Mount Vernon investigation

The civil rights division also on Thursday released findings in its investigation into police in the New York City suburb of Mount Vernon. It found police routinely use excessive force, make arrests without proper justification and conduct unlawful strip searches.

The report credited the police in Mount Vernon, north of New York City, with overhauling policies and increasing training on strip searches.

A Mount Vernon city spokesperson did not immediately comment.

The Justice Department report found that in June 2020, two women aged 65 and 75 were forced to disrobe and were subjected to body cavity searches after police falsely accused them of engaging in a hand-to-hand drug transaction.

Although Mount Vernon police records claimed the incident was the only wrongful strip search conducted in 10 years, the two female detectives who performed the search said they routinely had all female arrestees undergo a strip and cavity search.