Minority Caucus Issues Statement Regarding Mayor Greenberg’s Consent Decree Agreement with DOJ
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
The following is a statement released on behalf of the nine Republican members of the Louisville Metro Council's Minority Caucus:
"Today, Mayor Craig Greenberg announced that he has reached an agreement with the Biden Administration’s Justice Department to establish a consent decree that will govern the operation of our police force for generations to come.
To our knowledge, no member of the Metro Council has had the opportunity to review or comment on the details of this agreement, we know that we certainly haven’t. It would be wrong for us to state an opinion on the details of what Mayor Greenberg has agreed to without a thorough review of this proposal as this is a document that has taken months to create.
What we can say is that we are concerned. If Mayor Greenberg decided to push this through prior to the changing of administrations, that was a colossal mistake – one that could damage our community more than the poor leadership of his predecessor Greg Fischer who led this community head-first into this situation.
We are hopeful that the agreement reached between Mayor Greenberg and the Federal Government sets clear and reasonable deadlines for Federal involvement, that it recognizes the actions we have already undertaken, and it is supported by funding to ensure that our streets become safer. Unfortunately, we haven’t seen that in other cities, where consent decrees typically mean the continued depletion of police ranks through attrition and transfer, the escalation of costly new programs and most importantly, a rise in crime and violence. Consent decrees in other cities have lasted decades, not years and they can be extended. Consent decrees bring with them Federal control and micromanagement and have shown to do little if anything to foster a safer community.
Our city has suffered consistently record levels of violent crime with virtually no assistance from the Federal Government. This is exemplified by the fact that President Biden has failed to even name a US Attorney for our region during his 4 years in office resulting in little federal support to prosecute the most violent criminals.
In the coming weeks we will be consulting with attorneys and experts on this matter, and we will be reviewing the language agreed to by Mayor Greenberg. We are hopeful that this agreement is different than many others, but we can assure you that if it is not something that will improve our city and public safety, it will not have our support."
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