DOJ to investigate Louisville Police Department practices
Garland, speaking at the Justice Department’s headquarters, referred to Taylor during his announcement of the investigation, which he said “will assess whether (Louisville Metro Police Department) engages in a pattern or practice of using unreasonable force, including with respect to people involved in peaceful expressive activities.”
“It will determine whether LMPD engages in unconstitutional stops, searches and seizures, as well as whether the department unlawfully executes search warrants on private homes,” he said, adding that “it will also assess whether LMPD engages in discriminatory conduct on the basis of race, or fails to perform public services that comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act. Investigation will include comprehensive review of the Louisville police department policies and training.”
The attorney general said that “if there’s reasonable cause to believe there is a pattern or practice of constitutional or statutory violations,” the department “will issue a public report of our conclusions” and that it will “aim to work with the city and police department to arrive at a set of mutually agreeable steps that they can take to correct and prevent unlawful patterns and practices.”
Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer said in a news conference Monday that he “strongly” welcomes the investigation while outlining the steps the city has taken to provide “a higher level of police community legitimacy.”
“Thirteen months ago a horrible tragedy took place in our city with the killing of Breonna Taylor. Since then, Louisville and the entire country have been coming to a heightened reckoning with the need for police reform and racial justice,” Fischer said.
The probe announced on Monday will be led by the department’s civil rights division, which will be assisted by staff in the US Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Kentucky, Garland said.
“This is absolutely wonderful news,” Sam Aguiar, attorney for the Taylor family, told CNN on Monday. “We’ve known for a long time that our police department is plagued by issues that are continuously swept under the rug.”
The former officer, Brett Hankison, was indicted last year on three counts of wanton endangerment in the first degree, for allegedly firing blindly through a door and window, with bullets entering an adjacent apartment where a pregnant woman, a man and a child were home, according to the state attorney general.
The three felony counts are for endangering the people in that neighboring apartment, the state attorney general’s office said.
Two other officers who also fired shots during the botched raid were not indicted, meaning no officer was charged with killing Taylor.
This story has been updated with additional developments.
CNN’s Paul LeBlanc, Artemis Moshtaghian and Mark Morales artcontributed to this report.
