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 we knew we needed the support of Mayor Greenberg and LMPD Chief Villaroel to get the initiative back on track and completed successfully.

Therefore, at our Nehemiah Action on March 27, 2023, we secured commitments from Mayor Greenberg to follow through on three important steps to completing the process: first, to hire an outside researcher to conduct a “fact-finding” research process on the history of policing in Louisville; second, to conduct a community listening process (to take place in CLOUT congregations and elsewhere) to gather personal stories from the past and present about police-community relations, and; third, and to work with CLOUT to develop specific policy and procedural changes coming out of the Truth & Transformation process.

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. This is a step that was not taken by the previous mayoral administration, but we knew it would be a key to the Truth & Transformation initiative being a success.

When Mayor Greenberg was invited to the podium, and given extra time to make statement, he started by thanking CLOUT, saying, “Thank you for your commitment to addressing the challenges that we face in our community and the commitment to Truth and Transformation. We also appreciate your work putting together the Louisville Alliance for Sustainable Gun Violence reduction as well. Your energy and partnership are appreciated, and are really important as we work together to move our city forward in a new direction.”

He went on in his formal acknowledgment of harm statement to say this: “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, among other things, Chief Villaroel said, “I knowledge the pain caused by those who did not respect the law enforcement profession, and again, as I say, tainted the badge, and cast of shadow of mistrust upon community members. Those who decided to act in a manner contrary to their oath of office, have had a detrimental impact on this community, and they have cast that shadow yet again. And now we as officers are feeling the effects of that from those of us that want to do it the proper way. 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).
 
These statements, and the commitments made by Mayor Greenberg and Chief Villaroel, will provide a good foundation for the transformation needed in LMPD and in the relationship between the police and the community.

Be on the lookout for additional news about this initiative, particularly the community listening sessions, several of which will be hosted by CLOUT congregations.

Update March 2024: History of Policing Study
CLOUT has been working on issues related to Community Safety and Equity since 2020. A major focus of these efforts are the "Truth and Transformation" process, outlined by the National Network for Safe Communities. CLOUT secured a commitment to this process from Mayor Greenberg at the March 2023 Nehemiah Action. This  commitment included  an in depth research process into this history of policing. This was completed in 2023 by researchers from the University of Louisville. The History of Policing in Louisville: A Fact-Finding Report on Institutional Harms

Update August 2025: DOJ Consent Decree

In May 2025, the US DOJ withdrew its Consent Decree for policing reforms. 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.