LOUISVILLE, Ky. — The independent top-to-bottom review said the Louisville Metro Police Department is "in crisis," with unequal policing of Black Louisvillians happening far too often.
"To quote James Baldwin, 'you can never fix what you are unwilling to face,'" Dr. Kevin Cosby said of St. Stephen Church.
Father Bruce Williams of Bates Memorial Baptist Church recalls a time he was stopped by an LMPD officer. He said the officer told him it was because he didn't make a complete stop at a stop sign.
"While pointing to the building where our church was I said 'I'm a pastor of that building' and he said 'oh, oh' and I thought he kind of changed his tone a little once I said that," Williams said. "Then he said 'do you have any guns or drugs in your car?' And I just paused for a moment and I said 'no I don't' and he said 'okay you can go.'"
Cosby filed a formal complaint with LMPD in 2018 after his experience during a traffic stop. He said after the officer checked his and his wife's IDs, they were cleared.
"So I asked him, 'well why did you stop us in the first place?' And his response was that my license plate was covered by the framing of the license," Cosby said. "That was the reason he gave me for stopping but the fact of the matter is he had no legitimate reason to stop me."
The 155-page report of LMPD shows Black drivers were 60% more likely to be stopped than one would expect from their percentage of population.
"What struck me was nothing except for the fact that we have another study that tells us what we already know," Williams said. "But we have a new police chief, we have a new opportunity."
Attorney Shaun Wimberly Sr. represents dozens of civil rights cases alleging racial biases in traffic stops.
"An individual is targeted because of their race in a neighborhood that may be high crime," Wimberly said. "This is not new, these are issues in our community that should've been hammered our prior to the tragic events of Breonna Taylor."
City leaders say in order to fix the problems they have to look at policies and consider historical factors.
"The problem is it's an unconscious, engrained stereotype bias that not only the police have but American society has including Louisville," Cosby said. "We take people, we put people into different groups and categories in our minds."
The review featured more than 100 recommendations for LMPD, which can be found here.
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