Public Safety Committee - Regular Meeting

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Good afternoon. The time is 4.01 p.m. This is a regularly scheduled meeting of the Public Safety Committee. I'm your chair, Councilman Dan Syme, and I'm joined by Vice Chair Councilwoman Tammy Hawkins. Today we have the following committee members in attendance. In the room we have Councilwoman Betsy Rui, Councilman Jonathan Joseph. Virtually, we have Kevin Bratcher, Scott Reed, Jenny Mulvey-Woolridge. We do have enough for a quorum. Madam Clerk, would you please read the virtual meeting language?

This meeting has been held pursuant to KRS 61.826 and Council Rule 5A, written for

Thank you, Madam Clerk. We have two items on the agenda today. We will start off with our discussion topic. For the past few months, members of this committee and the Metro Council at large have been waiting for the delivery of what was an ongoing LNPD staffing report. This report was concluded in late April and we have set this one of the first items as we consider, as we returned from our post-fiscal year budget break. Today we'll dedicate an hour to hearing from Chief Humphrey on the finding and recommendations within this report, but first I'd like to ask for the support of this body for Chief Humphrey to deviate from this plan and address the recent letter members of the Metro Council received from the Metro Office of Inspector General regarding a report issued to LMPD related to traffic stops. I have asked Chief Humphrey if he would please take time at the beginning of this meeting to address the statements and findings related. Once he has concluded his comments, I will then seek questions from the committee members. If there are any, I intend to keep this deviation from our report to about 15 minutes so that we can still spend an hour on the operations and staffing study as originally planned. With that said, and with your support, we invite Chief Humphrey and his staff to today's meeting. Thank you, Chief Humphrey. And I ask you and everyone else speaking today, please introduce yourself and your title as you address this committee.

Thank you, Chair Summ. Chief Paul Humphrey, LMPD. And I do have some data up on the presentation screen, if we can add that. So yes, I appreciate that. So back in last fiscal year, we came to you all and asked for funding to partner with a company called Sigma Squared. What that company was was a company that did particularly biased data in hiring practices in the private sector. So they worked on helping companies evaluate their hiring practice and make sure that they were meeting what they should. Well, we wanted that level of scrutiny as well. There have been studies on traffic stops throughout the years, academic level studies, as well as what the DOJ did. We never got the results from the Department of Justice exactly, so we wanted a more in-depth level look into what was happening on our traffic stops. So not just the number of traffic stops and the raw disparities, but to be able to actually look in... I'm sorry, it should be on... But to be able to look into the actual actions that are happening on traffic stops. And to give you some background leading up to this because we also were trying to get officers out there to do work at the same time. So we wanted officers to increase their work and productivity in order to keep people safe while at the same time doing it the right way and understanding it. So there was a combination. And so I want to start off with this here, where you can see our spike in violent crime that began in 2020. And to put that in perspective, post 2020, last year was the first year that we dropped back down to what you consider average numbers. In that 10 year span of 2016 to 2025, we had over 5,000 people shot or killed in Louisville Metro. And so that was part of what we were also dealing with coming into this. And so as we sought out that data to understand what we were doing exactly as far as our operations, we wanted to be able to use both the crime data as well as the stop data as part of what educates our process. To keep it simple, because it is complicated, so first of all, there is no report that was produced by Sigma Squared. I know it's been referred to as a report, but these were dashboards. These were live dashboards. And as we came, started preparing for the next fiscal year, we were approached by a company that we already have a contract with. It said they now have the capability to do this within our existing contract. And so that is why we did not renew the $350,000 contract with Sigma Squared is because we're gonna be able to reproduce that data for much cheaper. And so the data also captures not just the disparity in the number of stops and searches, but it talks about hit rates. That is really what happens during the traffic stop. what is the hit rate of actually finding contraband when an officer is seeking consent to search a car. And our hit rate was relatively very high overall. It was about 58% of the times that officers search someone on a discretionary stop, discretionary search, they were actually getting contraband. And I think one expert that was quoted in the news said that that was relatively high, that they would expect more, about 25%. So very proud of that, but also want to get that number up as well. The two numbers on here that I want you to focus on that I think are really the crux of this discussion are the 66%. So 66% more likely to search black motorists after a stop than white. That is after like factors are controlled for. So under similar circumstances and conditions, we're still 66% more likely to search a black occupant of a vehicle. than a white occupant of a vehicle. And then the other number, which I think is really the number that deserves the most attention, is that we were 11% less likely to find contraband in those searches on black people than white people. And to put those two numbers in some perspective, that means that for every 100 white people that we stop, we would find contraband on 10, whereas for every 100 black people it would be 16. I'm sorry, we would not. And so that number seems huge, but it's relatively small, but it still has an impact, and we want to make sure that we reduce that impact as much as possible. So you're talking about the difference between about 50% success rate and 61% success rate in those stops. Now, part of what we have to focus on is also why is that happening? So from a training, strategy, tactics standpoint, why is there that level of difference? We stopped about 37,000 motorists last year. In that about 47% were white about 45% were black That disparity is not dissimilar from what it's been in every study for the last since I've been on the department That's that disparity and stop rates tends to exist And it is something to be aware of but I don't think it's necessarily an outlier necessarily an indication or a conclusory number. So we have to understand why those disparities exist, right? Those disparities are going to exist, plain and simple, as long as disparities in society exist. I don't know what level of disparate impact is an appropriate level, but I do know that we have an inappropriate level of disparities amongst education, healthcare, housing, economic equality between black people and white people, and I think that contributes to a lot of the disparity in violent crime uh... and issues that we see and so we have to appropriately respond to that and so we have to look at a combination of what is the data saying that we need to, where we need to deploy resources and how, and then what is the other side of the data saying, how effective are we being, and how fair and just are we being in that level of effectiveness. So when you look over the past few years, since 2021 when we really hit our peak of violent crime, shootings and homicides have come down 54% since then and 32% since 2023. In that 10-year time period, over 1,600 people were killed. That is an unacceptable amount of people, plain and simple. And when you break the numbers down by race, because that's what we're talking about is disparities in outcomes. black victims were far more likely, black people were far more likely to be victimized by violent crime. And I think I sent all of these documents to you earlier today. And so if you look at the peak average during those high three years where we had record number of homicides each of the three years of 2020, 21, and 22, we had an average of 123 black people a year murdered And to put that in perspective, our record number of total homicides prior to 2020 was 117. We had an average of 123 black people alone being killed. We had an average of 428 black victims of non-fatal shootings. And to help understand and give a little bit more perspective, To that data, when our shootings and homicides declined in 2025, that difference would have been about 44 more black people killed if we had stayed at that average. 44 additional dead black people if we had stayed at the average that we had previously, and 238 additional black victims of non-fatal shootings. We take this work very seriously. This is absolutely about protecting black people. I will tell you right now, I'm a firm believer that we have saved hundreds of black people's lives in the last few years by working with the community, trying to build trust, but also getting officers out there to do police work. That being said, we also have a lot of work to do in making sure that we continue to improve how we do that work. And that is exactly why we sought out this data, is to make sure that we knew what was happening on these stops and these interactions, knowing that traffic stops and pedestrian stops are only part of our strategies, It really is about how do we change the neighborhoods that are most impacted by violent crime for the better so that we can deal with the causes of violent crime. And so we have really put strategies towards that, and you see that in our crime plan as well, as well as the Safe Louisville plan. how that supplements and buttresses our crime plan. But we are taking this data and using it in order to improve. We are making sure that we are using this data from both the crime side and the operational side to inform our training, inform our strategies, inform our deployments to make sure that we're doing the best job possible in keeping people safe while simultaneously protecting rights.

Thank you, Chief. We're going to open the floor for some comments and questions. First in queue would be my Vice Chair, Tammy Hawkins, please.

Thank you, Coach. Thanks for being here today. That number saddens me, but I believe it. It's probably the first time that I've ever really believed some data. I've seen the 66%. What are we doing now to combat that or reduce that percentage moving forward? If we came up with a strategy plan to reduce that number, I want to ask you that first, and then I've got one more question.

Yes, ma'am, so the 66%, I believe, is an important number, an important indicator, but I'm not sure where that number should be. That number is not going to be equal. I think the number that we can get to be equal is that 11%. And I think as a consequence of getting that 11% down, making sure that officers are better educated in what they are looking for on traffic stops, more informed on how to perform those traffic stops, which I think they're doing a much better job today than we ever have. We have way more training related to the Constitution and legal requirements for things like searches. I think as we bring that 11% down closer to zero, I think you'll see that 66% figure also reduce, but I can't tell you where I think that number should be.

My next question is, and if you feel comfortable asking, but everybody that knows me just knows that I'm passionate about, and I know you are, our city, and just about public safety as a whole. Why do you feel like coming from your position, and I don't feel like it's a wrong counsel, no wrong counsel, it's just what your thoughts are. Why do you think that it's more, the percentage is more black than it is white or Hispanic or, You know, do you feel like that it's just the culture? Do you feel like that it has been the previous training? Or do you feel like that it is a balance of both? Or where would you put that at?

Yes, ma'am. I think it's a balance of everything. I think we have a lot of socioeconomic factors that have led to the conditions that we live in. and we have to face the facts as they are. I know that particularly in the past, practices of police have contributed to a lot of those disparities and some of the opportunities missed. However, I also know that having 70% of our victims of homicides and shootings every year being black, we can't ignore that and we have to focus the attention on that. I think it would be, morally wrong and professionally inappropriate if we thought we could police every problem the same exact way and have an even distribution in the way that we are handling things and providing resources. And I think we are making progress both as a police department and as a society, but I think we have a long way to go and I think that's pretty clear in those numbers.

I just want to say thank you for those honest answers. I appreciate that.

ma'am ma'am emily mckinley deputy chief if i could add one more thing to your first question about what are we doing so a couple things specifically that lmpd is doing so we do have an audit unit that is staffed with professional staff auditors and their job is to watch body cam video of various audits that we do one of the audits that they do is a stops audit. And last year they reviewed nearly 1500 traffic stops, body worn camera videos from the officers involved in those traffic stops. They have a scorecard that they keep to make sure that officers are following policy, completing the right forms, reporting things appropriately, citing people. conducting searches appropriately. And when there are flags, and there have been flags, they will raise those up to the appropriate level of supervision, whether that's through the chief's office for a professional standards unit investigation, or if there needs to be some sort of corrective action training on the officer's part. So that is one thing that we are doing to drive that 66% number down and close that gap with that 11% to make sure that officers are making the right decisions.

I appreciate you seeing that. Just one little thing I want to add to that. And if I would not have went through the simulator, you know, I don't think that I would be looking back on this. But I remember I was leaving Metro Council and one of my headlights just went out. Got pulled over by 7th Street. One officer pulled up, the other officer pulled up. One was on one side with a flashlight on one side, and the other one was like, need a driver's license. And I mean, he was like, don't move, don't move. You know, and, you know, it just took me to immediately, before he even got my ID, he was at a defense office. You know, and I don't know if some officers, I was by myself. I didn't oppose of a threat. You know, and the only thing that I could think about, I should have been the one that was in panic mode. You know, I'm trying to pay attention to the officer that was on my right side. They had the flashlight, you know, and then the officer that was on my left side that was asking me for my ID. Okay. you know, which one do I pay more attention to? You know, I'm like, yes. And I'm by myself. So, um, is it, what happens in the event if you have a new officer that, or is it a certain criteria? Because that is one of the things that I wasn't able to go through. And that is, a traffic stop. I went through the simulator, but if you could just give me and anybody listening, when those stops are being made, if it is a woman or just anybody that's bothered, does it matter if it's an 80-year-old woman that's bothered herself or somebody like myself that's bothered herself? who's not even posing as a threat or is it just an individual no matter age? It's not like it was four people, four young guys in a car that may have had guns in there. How do you level the severity on how you approach the vehicle and your deliverance when you approach a vehicle can set the tone for everything. Right.

So the chief this afternoon gave a press conference and kind of touched right on what you're talking about and how being stopped by the police for anyone, including all of us, is uncomfortable, whether you're being stopped for speeding or anything. But training officers and recruits on what that feeling feels like, that many people have not been searched by the police, have not had their person searched by an officer and to have, making sure that we're training officers and recruits on what that feels like so that when you're doing that to someone, you understand the impact that that is having on that person. And I think that's important. Another thing that we do to get across to officers as far as the impact of policing And we've talked about it many times before, but our recruits go to Washington, D.C. They go through the Holocaust Museum and the African American History Museum to understand the impacts of policing. And it's a specific program for policing, but understand the impacts of policing throughout history. So those are a couple of things that we do. And I think what we're talking about is having empathy on the other side of that contact, that officers know what that person is experiencing so that they can react appropriately.

Next in queue would be Jenny Mulvey-Wateridge, please.

Thank you. Thank you for being here. Thank you for the press conference this afternoon. I think it's important to be transparent with the public. So I think some of my questions were answered already. But one that I have is what what is the plan? Or what do you feel the top three takeaways are from this report? And what do you feel may be missing or misrepresented potentially in the report?

Yes, ma'am, thank you. I think the biggest takeaways from the report is understanding where we are. We really didn't have a baseline established for our actions on traffic stops and how successful we were. Now we really have a point to guide us, a point to train to, a point to build our strategies around going forward. And there's always gonna be gaps in data. It's only as good as the data that you put in. And I think one of the things that we have done that we need to continue to do even better is having a better success rate of documenting our stops. And so in the past, those stops forms where we get all of this data from, They were very basic and didn't have a lot of information. The forms that we use now have a ton more information and so as we continue to improve that process and the data in, I think the data out becomes better and also making that connection between how effective one strategy is on combating the crime and the illegal issues that we're actually trying to address.

Thank you. And I know that you said that the goal is to use one of the current contractors to gather this data in the future. Is there a way that Metro Council, the public, et cetera, will be able to see this data as you move forward, whether that be in a dashboard, whether that be through these public hearings, coming back to Metro Council? Is there a way that that is going to be able to be tracked as you continually do in your hearings now? And again, that is appreciated. but is that something that we can continue to see in the future?

Yes, ma'am. I would expect that we would continue to be able to produce data of this sort going forward as that company gets some of the methodology sorted out. We do have a dashboard up that covers a lot of our stops. It doesn't have this level of detail in the information that's available, but if you go to the crime data tab, on our website, ompd.gov, you will find a lot of information related to stops, arrests, gun seizures, and the like that is continuously updated. For instance, I have it pulled up right now that shows year to date we've seized 1,800 guns. So there is a ton of data on there. We welcome feedback on that as well.

Yeah, and that's appreciated. I know transparency, like I said, is much appreciated. I think that's what I have right now. I'll go ahead. If I have anything else, I'll get back in queue. But, again, thank you for all you all do for your transparency and, again, for the effort you do to keep us all safe.

Thank you. We've got a few more minutes left, and I'm going to try to get through the queue here. And Jonathan Joseph is next.

I'm always punctual. I'll be quick. Can you go back to the bar graph from one of the first slides? Yes, that. So for the 2025, so that's our most recent. So do we have where we're at, where we're projected to be in 2026? Because these are each one year long of 525,600 minutes of time, I would assume. But we don't have anything for 2026 right now. Do we have a projection of where that is?

So I don't have a projection, but I can tell you where we currently stand. And so, you know, if you... continue to add those days up. I'm no math magician, but we can get a projection.

So right now, as of August, we're at 52 and 134? That's okay.

Yes, and depending on the season, we have spikes and dips depending on how things are going. And we've been fortunate. We've actually, in the last, I think it was 10 years when we did the data, I think we've had two of the five longest streaks without homicide in this calendar year once in january and once in july where we had over 20 days without a homicide what do you contribute that to i think it's a combination of factors i think it's police out here doing work criminals know that there is a chance they're going to get caught there is not free you know free reign anymore it's also a lot to do with the community has been fed up with the level of violence and crime in the community and they're not taking it anymore. The level of trust has increased in LMPD and people are willing to call us and cooperate and give us information and we're able to make arrests and put a stop to some of this stuff.

Thank you, Councilman. Next in queue would be Councilmember Rui, please.

Thank you very much. So my question regards the data that's being collected on traffic stops. So what data is being collected and how is that analyzed?

So when an officer completes a stop, so it's not just traffic stops. This is any time a person is stopped. So whether you're in a vehicle or a pedestrian stop. So we call it a citizen stop form. So when you stop a person, You are required to pull a report number from CAD. So there's an associated report number for that stop. And then the officers go into our records management system. They fill out a citizen stop form. So it's going to collect the basic demographic of the person that was stopped. So gender, race, sex, that would be gender. age range, and then it's gonna collect what was the reason for that stop. So the officer has to physically type in the reason for that stop. If it was a traffic stop, was it an equipment violation? Was it a traffic violation? Was it an investigative stop? So what type of stop? Was there a search conducted, yes or no? Why was that search conducted? Was it consent search? Was there a search warrant? Was there probable cause? Was it search incident to arrest? So there's a reason to fill that out. If it's a probable cause or reasonable suspicion search, the officer is required to type in that specific probable cause or reasonable suspicion so that data is collected. If they call for K-9, that is collected. If the windows are tinted on the car, that is collected. If the car is searched, so maybe the people are searched, but the car is not, so the same information for a vehicle search. If there's passengers in the car, what are the demographics of the passengers? Were the passengers searched? all of the reasons why. So the form can get pretty lengthy depending on the context of the stop and length of the stop. We have collected stops data since the beginning of our careers. It used to be on a paper form and it just collected the location of the stop and the demographic of the person stopped. We have since expanded that pretty significantly. So that goes into our RMS system. Our RMS system had an API or a link in integration with Sigma Squared. They took that data and they ran various academic tests on that data, and that's the data, the numbers that you're seeing today. So there was a hit rate test that was run on that, so taking all the stops, holding for certain controls on those stops, and that's where you're getting those numbers of the 133, the 66, and the 11% difference on those hit rates. So that's kind of the data that's collected and what was done with it.

Okay.

Thank you very much, and we'll just move on to the next thing. Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember. Next and last in this queue would be Councilman Kevin Bratcher, please.

Can you hear me?

Yeah, we have. Can you hear me there? Yes, sir.

Sorry about that. So the questions for the chief, I have just a few. Is the aggregate number the problem or are there specific stops that are problems?

Well, I think.

Is the total average the problem or have you seen that there's certain stops that, hey, you shouldn't have done that or whatnot? and I have a follow-up.

So I think both can be good or problematic. When you look at that aggregate number, I think, like I said, that 11% is really where we want to focus and make sure that we work on that. But we also look into individual cases. So when we get complaints or when we have supervisors that report to us or other officers that report to us or trends that we see that would prompt us to look into individual interactions or individual officers, we follow up on that as well.

What's that 11%? I must have missed that one.

So 11% is the difference in the hit rate. So the likelihood of us finding contraband, uh, we are 11% less likely in a discretionary search to find contraband on a black subject than a white subject. Okay. I see.

Is there any geographical areas were collected in this data?

Yes, there is. I don't have that right now. I think it's in the large sample of data that I shared with council earlier today. But it does break it down by division.

You know, our area out here in Fern Creek and Oklahoma and whatnot, we're getting hit with all these like petty break-ins with cars. Somebody's going to get hurt one of these days out here. this, the perception, and I don't know if it's true or not chief, and I'm not making a negative comment on you guys, But the perception is there's no cops out here when this stuff's happening. Now, I know that there is after the fact, but there's nobody around to stop some of the activity. And I know that's just a lot of talk, and there's nothing to back it up. But that is the perception. So there's a lot of people. And I understand the historical problems with race, the race issues. But we wish you would pull over more people here, no matter what color they are, because it seems like there's not a lot of attention out here in the suburbs to the things going on out here. So that's just my comment.

Well, sir, I'd be much obliged to have officers pull over more people in your district. But just to give you a little bit of perspective on the car break-in issue, it is an issue that we definitely know is causing a lot of headaches for a lot of people in a lot of areas of the city. We have had several details, we're running regular details now involving the SWAT team, the air unit, the drone unit, as well as the task force and impact units from particularly the suburban divisions, that they're running details on a regular basis in order to combat this. We talk about the investigations that are going on into some of these car break-in, car hopper crews, and we've been able to put some pretty good cases. We're starting to put conspiracy cases on people, on groups of people who are doing this. We are making progress in that area, but it is an area – that is the place where crime is not down, is the car break-ins. And that's continuing to be an area of frustration, not just for you, but for us as well. Thank you.

Thank you, Councilman. I have one question before we go to the next topic. Are you aware of the report from WDRB on the pullover rate? MR.

Yes, sir.

Would you like to address any of the discrepancies right now in the record that will give us a little bit more of a perspective on your end as opposed to what we were subjected to with this report?

Well, and I'll be 100% transparent. I don't spend all my time reading their articles. I'm aware that they wrote the article. I didn't really watch it or read it. What I'm working on is LMPD, not WDRB, but what I do know is there is a lack of context to that data and a lack of understanding of how this happens on a strategic level. And some of the things that I've presented to you about why things are happening the way they are. And if we wanna keep referencing traffic stops that happened five, six, seven years ago as being the example of how we're biased, then I think we're doing a pretty good job to not have other examples. That said, we still need to continue to do a better job. Disparities don't necessarily mean equal that it's bias, but we still are focusing on how we're doing this better.

And we believe you're doing a better job, and we thank you for it. We're going to go ahead and switch topics, and Chief Humphrey, if you'll proceed to the staffing study discussion, we'd appreciate it.

Okay, so I've tried to reduce this to its simplest level so that I understand that staffing study is hundreds of pages long. That staffing study is hundreds of pages long and it's not exactly the funnest stuff to read. So I wanted to make sure that we could get this to where it is. Where we are right now is we are sitting at 1,013 officers currently. The staffing study gives us, let me pull it up for you. we're sitting at 1013 sworn right now plus we have 61 recruits in the academy which is that's a pretty high number relatively of recruits to what we've had over the past year so we're doing well in the recruiting area the staffing study suggests that we have 1136 sworn and effectively what that means is we need to add We need to go from up to about 430 patrol officers according to the staffing study. And right now in patrol we have 396 sworn officers just assigned to patrol. You can see here the breakdown of how many sworn are in patrol currently by division. And that is, those are determined by the level of crime, how many calls for service they get, the geography, because obviously, you know, the 7th Division, the 8th Division, it takes a lot longer to get from run to run, so even though you might have a lower call volume, that's going to come into play in that response. and I can go into more detail if you would like, but effectively I'll share these two slides with you as well. It shows the difference in where it expects patrol or projects that patrol should be. We don't expect that we're going to accept or meet all of those expectations of the staffing study. I think there's some places where we could be a little bit lower, but I think there's also some places where we could be much higher, so. Go ahead.

Can I just add a couple, because I know, so he mentioned, the chief mentioned, the staffing study suggested that a total of 430 patrol officers for the patrol divisions, and that we are currently at 396 patrol officers. You see this number in the column that says officers, This is the suggested staffing of 542. That includes detectives. So it also includes any DAP and any extra units that the divisions might have that aren't necessarily beat officers. So when we're talking about beat officers, they're suggesting 430 beat officers, and we are currently at 396.

Trying to simplify it as much as possible. It's pretty long.

So we have questions in the queue, and the first would be my co-chair Tammy Hawkins, please.

Thank you. So just looking at this chart, so first question, how many officers are we still down?

So... Our allotted manpower, I believe, is 1228 is what you all have allotted for us historically. And we are at 1013 right now. This would say we should be at 1136, so about halfway in between. So put us a little bit over 115-ish officers down according to the staffing study and about 200 plus down according to our historical norms.

Okay, next question.

looking at this chart how many officers are in the office they don't come out so that would be in some of the other bureaus this is not this is these numbers right here for patrol only so these are gonna be officers and detectives that are these are the ones that you see in marked cars that are responding to runs and stuff like that and then we have a couple other bureaus so the Admin Bureau Hang on. Admin Bureau, we have 18 in the Admin Bureau. And support, so support are your major crimes detectives, so homicide, robbery, all that type of stuff, as well as some of the specialty units like K-9 and SWAT. We have 163 there. in accountability and improvement. We have 19, that is audits, training, wellness, performance. And then in special investigations and PIU, we have another 13 there.

Okay, so those are the ones that

Assistant Chief Corey Robinson, LMPD, just so I can give some context to the chart. I created this chart so I can give some more context to it. The reason it may appear ambiguous a bit is in our agency, detective, Detective positions, I'll say it like that, is not a promotion. So in some agencies, that's a promotion. So when we did the staffing study, when we listed the ranks of major, lieutenant, sergeant, officer, so everything gets grouped in, there was no way to differentiate. So if you have someone in homicide, robbery, a district level detective, they're classified as officer. So the numbers you see there for those eight divisions, officers, so that means that first division commander has 73 people that he or she needs to figure out how many should be in a uniform, how many should be doing division level investigative work and so forth. And so if you break down the numbers even in homicide, it'll show as officer because it's not a promotion spot, if that makes sense.

so maybe you can say that yes no problem so i know once upon a time you all were like short maybe like 300 and something right so over the last maybe year two years What is the level of growth as far as employment? That's going to lead me to my last question.

Yes, ma'am. I believe the lowest we dropped down was about 975 or so. And that was including recruits. So we've now separated recruits because they are not police officers out on the street. And so being at 1013 right now, so we're 40 or so above that, uh, plus the 61 recruits. So that's a pretty significant change, but it is not nearly where I want to be.

Okay. So I know that our 26 colleagues, we all talk about wanting a safe Louisville, right? Um, do we get there with getting LMPD to that number that you feel like we need to be at? So, you know, my colleague Al Fern Creek won't be saying that he's not getting police presence, you know, just so it's equitable across the board, you know, just for a safe Louisville. How do we get there? How do we get more members of the community and just people in general feeling like that they want to join LMPD?

Well, I think there's a combination of things that have to be done. And one, internally, we have to stop complaining about not having enough manpower. We hire a recruit class. It's going to be a year from the point that they're hired until they're solo. So it's going to take some time. Work with what you have and stop complaining. Don't make it an excuse. The other thing is when it comes to recruiting, the best source of recruitment are the officers, the men and women who are here right now. And so making their job as rewarding and making them feel as supported and proud of the place that they work is one of my number one jobs, is to make sure that they are the ones out here recruiting because they love their job and they love the place that they work and they know that we care about them. And so we want to focus on those things as much as possible, but then on the tangible side is how do we leverage things like technology in order to maximize the efficiency of what we're doing? So how are we using things like drones and that stuff where it otherwise would have been a person or multiple people in a helicopter using that type of resource? And then how are we making sure that our resources are helping each other out? So when we are having that car break-in problem in one part of the city, that it's not just the 7th Division officers that are dealing with that problem. How are we as an entire agency helping support that division?

Thank you, Vice Chair. Next in queue is Councilman Joseph, please.

Chief, can you tell me how many traffic enforcement officers we currently have per division?

I can't say per division. Several of the suburban divisions have traffic cars assigned to them. How many do we have total in traffic? No, in the traffic unit. We've got about eight that are in the traffic unit in special operations. So they cover the entire city. And then several of the divisions have a traffic car themselves.

So each division has typically one? Is that fair? Is that? No.

So the suburban divisions, so the seventh and eighth and sixth divisions, they have a traffic car. And the third division has a traffic car that is dedicated to traffic enforcement that works in the division. But the traffic unit, the larger unit as a whole, patrols the entire city. And they are mainly on our interstates. So those are the traffic cars that you see on the interstates. So they're not necessarily assigned to a particular division.

So the third has one car that's kind of designated for that specific purpose?

Yes, but any officer can... do traffic enforcement.

But not all, well, I know that the radars and whatnot isn't just traffic enforcement, but not all cars have radars, correct?

That's correct. Not all police cars have radar. There are several officers that are not traffic officers that do have radar.

Okay. Okay. And then my other question that I had real quick, when we budget in June, how many officers did we budget for?

We budgeted for, I believe it was at the current manpower level, plus three classes of 20 recruits, which we're gonna go over. So I think the last class that we just hired on the first budget, the first class of the budget cycle was at 36 or 34, so that's a good thing.

Cool, that's all that I had. Thank you.

Councilwoman, Chappell has asked to be in the queue, and I'm going to give her a short time for – ask her question.

Thank you. Thanks for all this information, it's a lot to digest. This report hit my inbox last night at 10.51 p.m., so 300 pages is difficult to comb through. But given that it's such a heavy lift and it looks like you all received this report in April, I'm sure that everyone appreciates the brevity of your presentation, but you've boiled down 200 and something pages to two slides. And I'm failing to understand why the way that the information is presented in the report isn't similar to how you are presenting it today. Because it doesn't have it broken down by division. It does in some areas, but you also have a category called officers. And like you just said, officers includes beat officers plus detectives. they provide a base number for our beat officers and look at detectives separately. It's actually a very interesting report and one thing that the presentation fails to call out is that the office of the chief should have 11 less positions. So while we can say that some places need more staffing, we can also look at some and say this is a little inflated and we need to dial it back. So I'm just wondering if you could speak to Could the public expect a more broad breakdown of this report or is it on them to read the report in all 200 and something pages?

I think that's a reasonable request and what I'll say to you is I apologize because I thought that I sent this to the entire council back in April when it was finished or whenever it was finished. I think it was late April. I thought that I sent it to the entire council and I did not discover until last night when I got notified that council did not have it. And so I apologize for that.

Thank you. And I just want to point out, I don't even think halfway. I think I'm about a fourth through the document. But it's been very, very informative thus far. And I do want to encourage people to read it. and seek out more information. But one thing I wanna point out, for our patrol officers, they spend 40.7% of their total time on duty. And the report goes on to note that targeted threshold 40 to 45% is ideal for effective patrol service. So Louisville Metro is within those parameters according to this report. But I mean, it also breaks down things, for example, Currently, if you have a sexual assault or abuse case, if all proper tasks were completed in this report, it's 65 hours, but on average, we're dedicated 26.6 hours, and while there are some departments in some areas that are getting 100% and aligning more closely with those hours, there are some that have very large deficiencies. There's also a call out for specific officers to tend to traffic violations and traffic violations only. So I just want to, I guess this last part is not a question as much as a request that I really hope that people take the time to understand this and I hope that Louisville Metro Council does their homework in reading this report and holding you all accountable to aligning your staffing to be more in line with it. Thank you.

And I appreciate that. And just one point of clarification, that number is also utilizing the number of officers that we have working, including overtime officers. So without adding more officers, we'll continue to spend overtime filling those spots. And so that's why we're able to get to that kind of similar 45% number.

And one more, Councilwoman Rolridge, please.

Of course me. Thank you. So the report outlines several staffing, of course, technology, appreciate the technology, and operational recommendations. So in your opinion, I'm going to go back to kind of top three. What are the top three actions that would have the greatest impact for public safety today? And how can we as Metro Council, as well as the community, help make those happen? Not to put you in the spot.

I apologize. But I think part of that is the onus is on us, if I understand your question correctly, is that the onus is on LMPD to communicate to council on a regular basis of what the issues are and what the needs of LMPD is and listen to your feedback on how you may be able to help us and or guide us in directions that we might not be thinking about.

Two more questions, and some of these may be thought-provoking that we as a community can help with, but how do we balance the need for proactive policing with the continued effort to build trust and transparency? I know we've heard some in council how we build that from some of the members and those of the community. So have we thought about how do we continue to do that with that community policing?

Right, and so part of that is one, we have to do it the right way. We have to make sure that every individual interaction is done in a professional way and it's done in accordance with the law and the Constitution. So that is the very baseline of building trust is that people have confidence that we're gonna do our jobs well and we're gonna do it the right way. Number two is how do we increase those non-enforcement interactions? Our job in an enforcement way is inherently antagonistic or We come into conflict with people, meaning that they don't necessarily want to be talking to us when they get pulled over or stopped or locked up. They would prefer not to. So I have zero expectation that everybody is going to like the police. I'm very comfortable with not being liked. And if that's the case, that's fine. But I want to make sure that everyone, whether they like the police or not, respects the level of professionalism and the quality with which we perform our duty.

And speaking of that non-enforcement interaction, I want to give a shout out to you all. And thanks to all of the divisions for the amazing national night outs last night. So thank you all for that and for the interactions with the community. The last thing that I have is speaking of technology and the license plate readers. I know you all talked about it before, but I want to talk about some of the what I think is some of the false information. for Assistant Chief McKinley. I know you have addressed it before, but just if you could talk about some of how we are using that or how you all are using that and then how that data is stored.

Sure. Thank you for the question. So I know I came a few months ago and gave a presentation on, and gave various examples of how that data has been used to not only solve violent crime, but help locate missing individuals. I talked about several homicides that have been solved using FLUC. Knowing a suspect's vehicle description, being able to identify that suspect vehicle in the area at the time of the homicide has been instrumental in providing leads that we would have never had had we not had that information. We did talk about other cases where there was a gentleman and an elderly man with Alzheimer's disease was missing, drove away, and we were able to locate him very quickly utilizing flock cameras and make sure that he got home safe. So there's been, and we could go on and give more examples and happy to do that if you all would like more examples, we can provide that to you all. But as far as how the data is stored, so it is a photograph of license plates of vehicles that have passed by that camera. The data is stored for 30 days. It is deleted on a rotating 30-day basis. Every search is logged indefinitely by officers, so any search that you did two years ago is still there. Officers have to have a case number, a report number, and a reason for their search, so they type in the report number. and they type in the reason for that particular search. So that is all logged and kept indefinitely, but the data as far as the license plates for vehicles is deleted from the system on a 30-day rotating basis.

Thank you.

Thank you, Chief and Vice Chief. And what I would ask about the license plate readers that we continue to educate the public because there's a lot of misrepresentation out there. And please, whatever you can do, keep educating the public about what these license plate readers are really doing. And I have one question. I heard a long time ago we were short a whole lot more officers than what we're being told, but how do you determine how many officers we need? Do we do it per capita, per size of the city, per population in a certain area? How do we determine that? how many officers we need out on the streets. And when we get to the numbers we need, is that going to afford us foot patrol on 4th Street Live on a regular basis and in Nulu and in the South End? Are those numbers going to afford some folks on the sidewalks?

Yes, sir. And so that's a... kind of a complicated artistic science of how they get to those numbers and it has to do, Councilwoman Chappell referred the 45% free time I think is the number that this particular company talks about and that's the time that you are able to go do those additional patrols but also do paperwork, do all the administrative things and stuff like that. And so it has to do with calls for service, distance to a particular run. So for instance, I think it proposes cutting some of the manpower in some of the suburban divisions, accounting still for the distance that it takes to travel. So if I work in the first division, well the first division, the entire division is smaller than one beat in the seventh division. So a call for service, I can get through five or six of those in the first division before you ever get to your run in the seventh division. It is a combination of that along with the type of calls for service that officers are dealing with. A report run for a break-in is going to take a lot less time and a lot less manpower than a domestic violence run that results in someone going to the hospital and an arrest or use of force. And so all of those things are factored in. Like I said, I think our previously allotted manpower was about 1,320 in that area. If we got to 1320, you would get all of the patrols that you could have ever imagined. This particular study is saying that it believes that we can sufficiently keep the city safe at a lower number.

Thank you, Chief. Whatever we can do to help you, you let us know. And we thank you for your presentation today. I know you've got – you guys are – you've got a lot on your plate. We thank you for everything you're doing. There's nobody else in the queue. There's no more comments. So thank you guys so much for coming, and stay safe out there, and we want you to know we got your backs. Madam Clerk, please read item number two into the record.

Item 2, ordinance amending the Louisville Metro Code of Ordinance, LMCO, Chapter 51, regarding licensing fees. Ready and full.

Thank you. I sponsored this ordinance a while back, and I want to provide a brief background. In 2025, there was an amendment to Chapter 51 of the Louisville Metro Code of Ordinances, which updated the license requirements for waste haulers. As part of the amendment, the licensing fees for waste haulers increased from $100 to $500. There are two sections in Chapter 51 that address fees for waste haulers. The section dealing with waste disposal facilities also addresses licensing fees. This ordinance removes that section so it is not in conflict with the section that was amended last year. We have Public Works Director, Wes Sidnor, in attendance to speak to this further or answer any questions. So we want to bring Sidnor. Mr. Sidnor, would you come in and state your name and who you're with and provide some information on this, please?

Hello, I'm Wes Sidnor. I'm the Executive Director of Louisville Metro Public Works. Just high level, thanks to the Chair and to the Committee for having me. Not to repeat everything that you just said, but what's on the table here today is, not only duplicate, but as you said, in conflict with another section of ordinance that was just changed last year. These fees are collected on to license waste haulers so that we have an inventory and can regulate those that are picking up and disposing of some of these large items. things that you see. It's also a mechanism for us to, helps us better enforce illegal dumping and things like that and make sure that when folks are picking up or these companies are picking up this waste that they're disposing of it properly. And so this is a tool for us to do that. And as I said, this section that's being talked about today is in conflict with another section of ordinance, and so that's why it's, not to speak for you, but that's why it's being presented today.

Thank you, Mr. Sidner. We do have Councilwoman Mulvey, would you like to ask a question? She's gone? Okay. In that case, Councilwoman Betsy really is in queue.

Okay, thank you very much. So my question is how do these waste hauler fees help you combat illegal dumping? I don't understand that.

Yeah, so a couple things. It helps supplement the staff that we have. We have staff that is dedicated to seeking out and observing potential dump sites. So there's a cost of that and so that helps recoup some of those costs. Also providing some accountability on who do we have out there that is legitimately certified as a hauler so that we can make sure that they're following the procedures, disposing of things in the right place, that they're doing things the right way and within the standards that we've laid out. The whole process helps us keep basically an inventory of who we know about, who has agreed that they're going to follow the procedures, and then helps us with some of those other things to combat dumping out in the community. Is that?

Thank you.

Yeah.

Are you comfortable, Councilwoman? Okay. I don't see any more speakers in the queue. Oh, wait a minute. My Vice Chair Hawkins.

Yes, I just want to say this. I just want to commend you just on your service, you know, in public works. I think that you have been doing a phenomenal job. I've been seeing a lot of things get done a lot faster, quicker. So I just want to say keep up the great work. and I am willing to try absolutely anything when it comes to this illegal dumping.

I'm with you. Thank you. Thank you for those comments, and we have a great team. We have a lot of people that really care, and this is not the most glamorous issue, but it's one that is really important, and I personally care about it, so I appreciate that.

There's no one else in the queues and this ordinance requires a roll call vote. Clerk, please open the roll.

Nope.

Committee member Bratcher?

Yes.

Committee member Reed?

Yes.

Voting's closing.

unanimous yes so this will be sent to the consent calendar and in closing our next regular committee meeting is scheduled for wednesday august 19th at 4 p.m thank you and thank you mr sidnor