Special E-Newsletter: December 16, 2024 - Special Update from Councilman Piagentini -Consent Decree

Louisville Metro Government sent this bulletin at 12/16/2024 04:51 PM EST

Special Update from Councilman Piagentini

The Consent Decree

December 16^th, 2024

Dear Friends and Neighbors,

I wanted to send out a special newsletter to address the news from Thursday of last week that the Mayor signed a consent decree with the Federal Government which will dictate how our police department operates for the foreseeable future. The following are a few thoughts and points of clarity but I am also including a link to the actual consent decree so you can review it yourself and I am linking to the statement that the Republican Caucus released immediately after the press conference.

First, I did attend the press conference live and I spoke to Mayor Greenburg about this shortly afterward. As usual, he was forthcoming with me about the situation and his hopes for how this plays out. I have not completely finished reading every word of the document and I am not an expert on consent decrees. With that said, there are some elements that seem to be unique to our’s:

It limits the annual spending on the monitoring consultant for the first two years
The judge will have to authorize the consultant to continue after that period of time
There are more specific criteria to determine how we have achieved the goals of the decree
After 5 years, the DOJ must prove to the judge that the consent decree must be extended as opposed to the city proving that it has completed all aspects of the consent decree
Parts of the decree can be deemed completed as they are achieved

Although some of this is better news than had it followed the DOJ’s history of consent decrees, I do want to point out a few facts. The most disturbing fact is in every single case that I could find, crime goes up after signing a consent decree. I was appalled when the representative from the DOJ claimed that these resulted in crime reductions. I could not find one example of that. I looked at Seattle and Baltimore as two examples. In the case of Seattle, their crime rate has never gone below what it was the first year they signed their decree in 2012. In Baltimore, 4 years after they signed their decree, the city had the worst violent crime and property crime rates per capita out of the top 60 cities in the United States.

Councilman Anthony Piagentini

601 W. Jefferson St.

Louisville, KY 40202

Phone: 502.574.1119

Fax: 502.574.4501

Email Councilman Piagentini

Legislative Assistant Chanelle Smith

Phone: 502.574.3464 Email Chanelle Smith

Track Crime in the City

Further, there is not 1 example of a consent decree that has been completed by the DOJ. In the case of Seattle, they signed their decree in 2012 (12 years ago), they were deemed in full compliance after year 6, and as of today, they have still only been deemed to have partially completed the requirements.

Finally, although the costs of the monitoring consultant is capped, there is no cap on the costs of completely fulfilling this agreement and I expect the total costs to be over ten million dollars of taxpayer money when it is all over.

The point in saying this is although I hope and will work hard to help the Mayor get out of this quickly and reduce crime at the same time, if we pull that off, we will be the first city in history to do that. I am not saying it is impossible, I am simply saying it is unheard of.

For clarity, the Metro Council had zero insight into this and we have no oversight of it moving forward. The best we can do is help ensure compliance as quickly as possible so we can focus on fighting crime. This is a settlement that will be entered into with the Federal Court system and they along with the DOJ will have jurisdiction over this.

The good news is that we have pulled a great judge who is a strict constitutionalist and, if their record is any indication, will not try to insert himself into this process or drag this out needlessly. Also, now that the Trump Administration is about to take office, they are far more likely to work with us and be realistic on us meeting the goals of the agreement so we can move on.

I want to be as clear as possible…we all want constitutional policing. I am completely against any government agency trampling on the rights of citizens. With that said, our homicide rate has jumped almost 3-fold in the past 5 years. There are hundreds of more dead Louisvillians due to the inept leadership of our previous Mayor. Nonetheless, the DOJ said nothing about his failed leadership. Nor did they say one word about the homicide rate or commit to any additional resources to help us solve it. To this day, the Biden Administration has not appointed a US Attorney for the Western District to help lead the federal government to prosecute these violent criminals. I am tired of everyone pointing the finger at our police department while the same people refuse to point the finger at their own failures.

The following is a link to the Mayor’s statement which also has a link to the consent decree: https://louisvilleky.gov/news/mayor-greenberg-announces-historic-consent-decree-0

The following is the statement from the Republican Caucus: https://louisvilleky.gov/news/minority-caucus-issues-statement-regarding-mayor-greenbergs-consent-decree-agreement-doj

I will have one more newsletter later this week to summarize what happened at the last Council meeting of the year. I appreciate your time and I appreciate everyone’s support of our law enforcement employees who are on the front lines of keeping us safe every day.

Humbly Yours,

Anthony Piagentini

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