Louisville police outline crime reduction efforts, ask for community involvement

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) — Louisville Metro Police Department outlined strategies that officers are using to further reduce violent crime across the city during their biweekly police briefing Thursday.

Chief Paul Humphrey said collaborating across law enforcement departments, increasing community involvement and pursuing warrants to get criminals off the street are some of the strategies they have implemented.

During the briefing Humphrey said crime is down across the board, specifying that homicides are down 21 percent, and non-fatal shootings have decreased 28 percent. Carjackings show the highest decreases from 2024 to 2025, reducing by 36 percent.

When it comes to reducing violent crime, Humphrey said his officers are on target, he wants to see sharper declines.

"Since 2020 we haven't had under 145 homicides, I think, and we're now looking at homicides under 115," LMPD Police Chief Paul Humphrey said during his remarks. "That's not good enough. We still have to keep pushing it, because while that difference results in lives saved, there are too many lives lost and still too many victims and victim's families out there."

Humphrey had this message for criminals: "You're on our radar, and and we're coming for you."

Humphrey stressed that it takes teamwork from everyone, community members included, to make sure they get criminals off the street.

LMPD is currently asking for help to find 39-year-old Shoshanha Jones. She's accused of gunning down a woman in the parking lot of McDonalds on East Market Street on New Year's Eve.

"I wondered if I knew them because I know this community very well and my heart went out to them," said Carol Hampton, who owns a shoe store across the street.

As LMPD continues to work to make Louisville even safer and search for the New Year's Eve shooting suspect, community members in downtown Louisville like Hampton push to change the narrative after a recent homicide

"This community is what built this business, literally," Hampton said. When I came down here, I was advised not to."

Hampton didn't let that advice stop her plans, carrying on a family tradition.

"My grandmother worked down here, my mother worked down here," she said. "I was out in the suburbs when I first went into the shoe business in Hearstman. I wanted to come down here. This is where it started."

Hampton and Cara Ritz, who lives downtown, said they don't want people to be scared away by crime.

"People who don't come downtown are missing what the city is like," Ritz said.

Hampton said crime "can absolutely happen anywhere. This is no different than anywhere else."

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