LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- Louisville's police chief responded to the conviction of a former detective involved in the raid that killed Breonna Taylor.

Louisville Metro Police Chief Paul Humphrey said Thursday he hopes the city feels "a sense of justice for what's happened."

He also talked about the conviction of a former detective in the Breonna Taylor shooting.

"Obviously, this community has been through a lot post-that incident, and I'll tell you exactly what I told officers. I wouldn't expect any of them to act like that detective did that day. Plain and simple. That's unacceptable," Humphrey said during his bi-weekly press conference. "Whether or not he was indicted by a grand jury, whether or not he was charged, whether or not he was found guilty. Doesn't matter to me. That's not the behavior that's acceptable. That's not OK."

A federal jury convicted former Louisville Det. Brett Hankison last week. They found him guilty of using excessive force and violating Taylor's civil rights in the botched police raid of her home in March 2020.

The judge will decide Hankison's sentence in March, roughly four years after Taylor's death. He faces up to life in prison.

Humphrey later stopped by WDRB News on Thursday during the news at 5 p.m. to talk about how he's leading the department as the 6th chief in four years.

To combat crime amid a 250 officer shortage in Louisville, Humphrey is asking officers to be proactive.

"When I talk about proactive policing, it's everything," he said. "We need proactive enforcement, whether that's traffic, pedestrian stops, but we need contacts. Visibility. We need to make those relationships in the community so people understand we're here to keep them safe."

One controversial proactive tool Humphrey wants to use is the city's decades-old mask ordinance. He and Louisville Mayor Craig Greenberg have said too many criminals are using masks to conceal their identity to commit crime. However, some in the community are worried it could lead to profiling.

"Regardless of whether it's masks or traffic stops or whatever tactic we use, any tactic has the potential to go sideways," he said. "And so this is about good supervision and good feedback systems to those officers to let them know where the right track is, and if they stray one way or the other off that track, lets get back on that track."

But when it comes to bad apples on the police department, who have eroded public trust, Humphrey had this to say:

"Every mistake doesn't mean somebody needs to get fired. A lot of mistakes are rooted in our ability to take that officer and make an appropriate judgement of whether they need to be fired or not," he said. "And then when they're not, our job is to make them better, not to continue their punishment throughout their entire career."

One ongoing problem in the city that has come back up in recent weeks is street racing.

"We have to get this problem stopped," Humphrey said. 

It's already proven to be a deadly issue. On Oct. 25, a 77-year-old woman was killed and her 74-year-old husband hospitalized with serious injuries after a drag racing crash. It happened on Bardstown Road, south of the Gene Snyder. The couple was turning onto the roadway when Yusnier Pachecho, 42, slammed his Mustang into their vehicle. Police said he was traveling at nearly 120 miles per hour at the time, drag racing with Adam Steele, 38. Both have been charged in the case. 

"This is exactly why we take street racing seriously," Humphrey said. "Because innocent people get hurt and killed."

The chief said the department is following intel when street races and street takeovers will happen and putting officers there. They're also taking cars, with 66 seized within the last six months and taken to the department's tow lot. 

Humphrey also addressed the ongoing negotiations with the U.S. Department of Justice on terms for a consent decree, mandated police reform, LMPD agreed to following the results of a DOJ investigation. 

The negotiation process began in February, 11 months after the DOJ came to Louisville and released a scathing report into the city's police department with its findings from a years-long investigation prompted by the March 2020 police killing of Breonna Taylor.

In the report, the DOJ said they believe LMPD and Metro Government engaged in practices that violated the U.S. Constitution and federal law for years, including excessive use of force and searches based on invalid search warrants.

The investigation cited 63 different incidents of alleged misconduct, according to an appendix of a 90-page report the DOJ released following their investigation. By 2022, at least nine officers had been convicted in federal court and several more cases are pending.

Examples of excessive force provided in the first section of the appendix include the use of neck restraints and police dogs against "people who pose no threat," an "unreasonable and unsafe" use of tasers, using takedowns, strikes and bodily force "disproportionate to threat or resistance," and escalating encounters, leading to excessive force.

The DOJ ordered Louisville's police department to enter a consent decree. The oversight agreement sets tangible requirements for change, metrics to measure improvement and timelines to achieve them. It's all approved by a federal judge, legally binding and then overseen by a independent monitor who must regularly report progress or any problems to the public.

WDRB asked Humphrey if the federally-mandated reform agreement would still happen with Donald Trump winning the presidential election. Trump shut down such agreements in his last administration when he served as president.

"The mayor has said it would come by early fall, before the new year," he said. 

Humphrey is the sixth person in four years to lead LMPD as the department has been enveloped in scandals for several years.

He joined the department in 2006 and spent several years as an officer in the city's 1st and 6th divisions in the Newburg and Russell neighborhoods. In 2010, he joined the SWAT team and became its commander in 2017.

He was named interim chief in June after Chief Jacquelyn Gwinn-Villaroel was forced to resigned shortly after being put on administrative leave over her handling of sexual harassment allegations from a high-ranking officer. 

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