LMPD continues to balance the First Amendment right to protest with the public safety needs of the entire community. For nearly 75 days, Louisville residents have taken to the streets to express their desire for accountability and change.
One of the primary ways of doing that has been to hold nightly caravans – both cars and foot marches – throughout the city. We have seen increasingly unsafe behavior, including an escalation in aggressive behavior over the past week or so.
Due to ongoing safety concerns and
an increase in aggressive behavior over the past week, including several incidents Saturday night, LMPD has determined the protest caravans cannot continue as they have been.
Starting tonight, LMPD will enforce all laws as it relates to the caravan:
While most protesters in the park have been largely peaceful. Things changed last night when shots rang out in the park, leaving one dead and one other shot. We are now clearing the park and it will stay cleared.
Peaceful gatherings can continue during the day, but we will not allow people to stay overnight. No tents of any kind will be allowed at any time of day.
A team from Metro Public Works is working to pack up the tents in the park and ensure all the belongings are secured so they can be returned to their owners. They will be available for pick up at 600 Meriwether Avenue later today.
Just about 9 p.m., there were reports of shots fired in Jefferson Square Park. Calls then came in that Sheriff’s Department personnel were in the park performing life-saving measures on a male who eventually died at the scene.
A short time later, we got a report of another shooting victim at the Hall of Justice. That person was taken to University Hospital with non-life threatening injuries.
Officers cleared the park completely and have secured the entire area so homicide detectives...
can conduct their investigation. Detectives are trying to gather as much information as possible in order to identify all who were involved in the incident.
The park will remain closed for the next several hours.
Early this morning just before 2:30 a.m. LMPD”s Fifth Division received a report of multiple people shot at Clay and Franklin Streets near the Skate Park. Once on scene they located three victims (age/gender not immediately available) suffering from gunshot wounds.
Two of the three were transported to University Hospital in serious condition while one was pronounced deceased on scene. During the course of the investigation officers located two additional victims (for a total of five victims) who were privately transported to University...
and appear to have non-life threatening injuries. At this time it does not appear as if any of the five victims was the actual shooter and the Homicide Unit is handling the investigation.
Multiple teams from LMPD are on an active scene in the 3000 blk of Montana. SWAT, HNT and our Bomb squad are here. This is normal protocol for these types of situations.
We are asking all lookey-loo’s to stay away. Neighbors close to the house we’re interested in to stay inside their homes.
“HNT” is our hostage negotiation team. This doesn’t automatically mean this is a hostage situation.