Community

Safety & Equity

Following the killing of Breonna Taylor and the resulting community outcry in 2020, we launched our effort to address issues of community safety and equity. Our research confirmed what many in our membership have experienced, that various parts of our criminal justice system—police, courts, prosecutors, corrections—do not provide justice for all citizens. Many people have been victimized by these systems, and some have lost their lives. We decided that we need a different kind of policing, a different kind of criminal justice system, and different interventions with people in crisis.

So, in 2021 we were successful in getting the Metro Council to allocate funds to contract with the National Network for Safe Communities (NNSC) to come to Louisville to lead in what we named, and the city is now calling, the “Truth & Transformation” process. The purpose of the process is to improve police-community relations, and to address racial inequities in our criminal justice system.

During the last mayoral administration, the initiative was delayed. So, at our Nehemiah Action on March 27, 2023, we secured commitments from Mayor Greenberg to follow through on key steps in the “Truth and Transformation” process, including conducting a “fact-finding” research process on the history of policing in Louisville.

CLOUT worked with Mayor Greenberg and Chief Villaroel for several weeks leading up to our Assembly to encourage them to make strong "acknowledgment of harm" statements at the Assembly.

In a formal acknowledgment of harm at our 2023 Nehemiah Action, Mayor Greenberg stated: “The DOJ investigation produced descriptions of police misconduct and abuse, and of too many people in authority looking the other way. This is infuriating. It’s unacceptable. And it’s inexcusable. It hurts to hear about the specific examples of abuse cited in this report, particularly cases of abuse against Black and brown members of our community, as well as women and people with disabilities. The abuses were committed by people who are supposed to serve and protect them. These are betrayals of the public trust, and betrayals of the integrity and professionalism that the overwhelming majority of our officers bring to the job every day, and every night. Far too many people in our community, over far too many years, have received contempt and abuse from officers of the law, sworn to protect them. To those people who have been harmed, on behalf of our city government, I’m sorry. You deserve better. We can and we will do better.”

In her statement, Chief Villaroel said, “I acknowledge the pain caused by those who did not respect the law enforcement profession, and again, as I say, tainted the badge, and cast a shadow of mistrust upon community members. … To the people who may have been impacted by the officers who did not value what they were called to do, what they were trained to do, what they said they were actually commissioned to do, I apologize for their behavior.”

(To watch a video of their full statements, as published by the Courier Journal, click here).

In January 2024, as part of the “Truth and Transformation” process, in-depth research into the history of policing in Louisville was completed by researchers from the University of Louisville: The History of Policing in Louisville: A Fact-Finding Report on Institutional Harms.

Since 2024, CLOUT’s Community Safety and Equity committee has focused on the successful implementation of the Consent Decree for policing reforms. This decree followed a 2023 DOJ report confirming that LMPD has “engaged in a pattern or practice of conduct that violates the U.S. Constitution and federal law.”

In May 2025, the US DOJ withdrew all civil rights-related Consent Decrees. Anticipating this result, CLOUT secured the following commitments from Mayor Greenberg at our Nehemiah Action in April 2025: 1) to implement the Consent Decree reforms, 2) to hire an independent monitor, and 3) to establish community oversight.

So far, a plan for the city's self-imposed Consent Decree has been released, an independent monitor has been hired, and a "Community Safety Commission" (including a representative from CLOUT) has been formed. The Commission will monitor both the Consent Decree reforms as well as the Safe Louisville plan to reduce violent crime. CLOUT will continue to track implementation of these reforms for years to come.