LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) — Louisville's police chief responded Wednesday to calls for action by the city's inspector general over data showing a widening gap in racial disparities during traffic stops and shootings across the city.
On Monday, the Louisville Metro Office of Inspector General called for immediate action after internal records obtained by WDRB showed Metro Police officers searched Black drivers more than twice as often as white drivers last year and were less likely to find anything illegal when they did.
The data, drawn from a report produced by Sigma Squared — a data firm LMPD hired for $350,000 — found Black drivers were searched 133% more often than white drivers overall. When controlling for similar factors such as age and location, the disparity narrowed but persisted: Black drivers were still searched 66% more often than white drivers in comparable situations.
The report also found discretionary searches of Black drivers produced an 11% lower hit rate — meaning officers found illegal items less often — compared to searches of white drivers in similar circumstances. The report's own language described the pattern as reflecting "inefficient and potentially biased discretionary search decisions."
"These findings are not merely statistical," the OIG said in a news release Monday. "Each traffic stop and discretionary search represents a direct exercise of governmental authority against an individual. When one racial group accounts for a larger share of stops and is searched substantially more often, while those searches were less likely to uncover evidence supporting further enforcement action, LMPD must determine whether officer discretion, supervisory practices, enforcement strategies, or departmental policies are contributing to the disparities."
LMPD Chief Paul Humphrey said Wednesday there is another important statistic in the conversation.
"There's going to be a disparity in stops. Plain and simple," Humphrey said. "There is a disparity in crime, and it would be improper of us to act like we police every problem the same way."
In response, the OIG called on LMPD to:
- Officially release the complete report, underlying methodology, and supporting data, subject to lawful privacy protections
- Identify the officers, units, stop categories, and divisions exhibiting the largest disparities
- Conduct documented supervisory reviews of discretionary search activity
- Examine whether reasonable suspicion, probable-cause, and consent-search standards are constitutional
- Determine whether deployment strategies, enforcement priorities, or supervisory practices contribute to the disparities
- Establish measurable corrective actions and implementation deadlines, and
- Publish periodic data on stops, searches, search results, and evidence recovery so that the public can evaluate whether conditions improve.
When asked if he plans on implementing those changes, Humphrey said Wednesday that while the OIG and LMPD have a shared goal, the department is still reviewing the requests.
"I think the goals of the inspector general, as well as the goals of LMPD, is to keep people safe, and to make sure that we're doing that the right way and protecting constitutional rights and maintaining good community relations," he said. "It would have been nice to have been able to provide any of this data to him before he made those demands, and it would have been nice if we wouldn't have gotten questions about his demands prior to receiving them. So, we're in the process of still working through what the inspector general has sent over and many of the things that he has asked for are things that we are already in the process of doing."
Humphrey said the department plans to release the Sigma Squared data so the community can see the numbers, but wants to make sure it also includes context so people can better understand it. He said he takes these disparities seriously, and wants to make sure that everyone in Louisville, particularly Black people, can feel like they can trust the police.
The gap in traffic stops has grown over more than a decade. In 2014, Black drivers made up 28% of traffic stops in Louisville — a city where Black residents represent roughly one-fifth of the population. By 2019, that figure climbed to 34%. Last year, it reached 48%.
That trend is consistent with findings from earlier reviews. A 2013–14 analysis of vehicle stops found 13.7% of stops involving Black drivers resulted in a search, compared to 7.6% of stops involving white drivers. A 2021 independent assessment by the consulting firm Hillard Heintze, commissioned by the city after the death of Breonna Taylor, found "strong evidence exists indicating Black individuals are treated disproportionately in every category — electronic stop data, paper stop data, field contacts, arrests and citations."
In March 2023, a U.S. Department of Justice investigation concluded LMPD engaged in a "pattern or practice" of unlawful discrimination against Black people in its enforcement activities, including through racially disparate traffic and pedestrian stops.
"True reform begins with acknowledging what the evidence demonstrates," the OIG said in a news release. "LMPD's own analysis identifies a racial disparity in traffic-stop composition and substantial, widespread racial disparities in discretionary searches, and concludes that officers are conducting more searches of Black subjects without better results. Minimizing those findings will not correct them."
LMPD released a statement Monday night regarding the data, saying it "welcomes public discussion surrounding data and analysis on 2025 traffic stops because transparency and continuous improvement are essential to maintaining public trust."
LMPD said the data "identifies statistical disparities after controlling for several variables, but it does not conclude that officers engaged in intentional racial discrimination, nor does it establish that any individual officer violated department policy or constitutional standards. Statistical disparities are important indicators that warrant further examination, but they are not, by themselves, evidence of unlawful bias or misconduct."
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