LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- Louisville Metro Police Chief Paul Humphrey said Tuesday the department finished its review into misconduct allegations made against police by the city's Metro Inspector General in the 2022 shooting death of Omari Cryer and found no serious mistakes. 

The department acted quickly to squelch allegations Inspector General Ed Harness made at a Jan. 22 meeting of the city's Civilian Review and Accountability Board. Humphrey called the OIG report "inaccurate." 

Among other misconduct, Harness said the board's investigation of Cryer's shooting found police made false statements in both a search warrant affidavit and criminal complaint.

Previously, Humphrey called the allegations misleading "crap" and on Tuesday presented body camera footage, search warrants and other evidence to counter the 13 issues the board found. 

"These are very potentially dangerous allegations to LMPD," Humphrey said Tuesday. "Accountability works both ways." 

LMPD found a few small issues but said the review will prompt no punishment or further investigation into the case. 

"These officers did nothing wrong," Humphrey said, adding that he would give them a pat on the back.

Harness told reporters OIG has reviewed and made recommendations in 27 investigations yet this is the first response they have received from the department. 

"I respect the chief's decision because the system said I must," Harness said. "We're happy we've gotten a response in this particular one. There are other incidents that we'd like them to go back and review."

As for hurting LMPD's reputation with some of the allegations, Harness said, "this is oversight, this is us working and doing our part of the process where we believed there were discrepancies and we asked the Department to look into them.

"We didn't cast any aspersions. We didn't assign any guilt, and our public facing document did not name any particular officer, so all we did was ask for an investigation."

Cryer, 25, was killed in the Chickasaw neighborhood in west Louisville on May 20, 2022. He was shot twice by a deputy U.S. Marshal after fleeing from an apartment when a joint task force involving LMPD and the U.S. Marshals Office went to arrest him on a warrant. No LMPD officer fired their weapons during the incident.

Cryer was wanted on charges related to domestic violence, including assault and strangulation. He ran from officers and fell after jumping over a fence. Police said Cryer grabbed a gun from his waistband.

The OIG investigation began in March 2023 after a third-party complaint alleged abuse of authority, excessive force and discourtesy by police in the shooting of Cryer.

One of the alleged false statements included Sgt. Sarah Mantle noting in Cryer's criminal complaint that the victim said she began to lose consciousness when Cryer strangled her.

"When in fact (the victim) states to responding officers that she did not feel like she was going to pass out," according to the OIG investigation.

In the body-camera video from the interview of the victim from the day of the incident, she does tell police that she "lost consciousness." When the same officer asked her a follow up question if she felt like "everything was going dark," she said, "no."

Humphrey said that was not an incorrect statement from Mantle.

"She absolutely said she was going to be strangled," Humphrey said of the victim.  

The victim tells police that Cryer stole her vehicle and she wanted to take an emergency protective order out against him. She never follows through with these acts, however, according to the report.

LMPD's chief Paul Humphrey said the department finished its review into misconduct allegations made against police by the city's Metro Inspector General in the 2022 shooting death of Omari Cryer and found no serious mistakes.

The OIG report also "finds concern" with the amount of time — 40 days — between the time of the alleged assault and when Mantle first attempted to contact the victim.

Had Mantle acted quicker, according to the report, she would have realized the alleged victim did not seek an emergency protective order against Cryer and, in fact, was still in contact with him, posting pictures of the two together in the following months.

The chief pointed to the high volume of domestic violence cases and acknowledged that delay is a problem. He noted just because the victim didn't take out an EPO and may have still been with Cryer doesn't mean the case still shouldn't have been prosecuted, he said. 

As far as lying on a search warrant, the OIG report claims a sergeant wrote in the affidavit that someone warned Cryer before probation and parole came over to the home to check on him. Instead, the report said, Cryer's friend just told him what was going on and gave him a choice of whether to stay or go.

Police responded that Cryer's friend knew Cryer had a handgun and a felony assault warrant.

"Calling this a 'warning is far short of a false statement because it can easily be seen as a warning to Mr. Cryer," according to LMPD's written response to the OIG report.

"I vehemently disagree with questioning this officer's credibility on this," Humphrey said, noting how inflammatory it is to claim an officer lied on a search warrant in the wake of the Breonna Taylor shooting. 

The chief said the OIG also misunderstood the abbreviated version of a criminal charge in court records, saying police overcharged Cryer by saying he assaulted a minor. Actually, the charge was "assault with minor injuries," but part of the charge was was cut off. 

Harness acknowledged that was "clearly a mistake." 

Humphrey said the department put many man hours and money into reviewing the allegations made by Harness. 

The office of inspector general investigation reviewed documents from the Marshals office, an internal investigation by Louisville police, body camera footage, search warrant affidavits and court records, among other evidence.

Harness also said police did not turn on their body cameras during the search of the home.

Humphrey said that is false. There was an allegation that the warrant wasn't ordered sealed by a judge. Humphrey said it was. 

The chief said he met with Harness last week to talk about improving communications, noting the department did not know about the report until seeing it on the news. 

"We can see what we all need to do to improve," he said. 

Asked if the relationship between the two will be positive moving forward, Humphrey said, "we'll see." 

"I'm going to be professional and do what I need to do," he said. "We have to make it work."

As for Harness, he said the chief "did a review, he presented his point of view, and we can agree to disagree and move on. This is, this is the process."

This story may be updated.

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