Fifty-five years after the Kentucky Open Records Act granted the public access to completed employee disciplinary records, the city of Louisville has decided to comply with the law.
Notably, this *should* apply to disciplinary records for police officers connected to the fatal LMPD shooting of Breonna Taylor, which the department defended withholding as recently as Thursday.
I say should because the records are not yet in my hands.
If police accountability and government transparency are things you're into (🙋♀️), then yesterday was a big day in Louisville.
Let's recap, shall we?
🧵
First up, the Police Merit Board met yesterday.
They set the appeal for Joshua Jaynes, the former LMPD detective who sought the no-knock warrant for Breonna Taylor's apartment, for four days in June.
You may remember Sgt. Jonathan Mattingly, who was injured in the March 13 raid that left Breonna Taylor dead, fired off a controversial email last fall, saying they did the “legal, moral and ethical” thing.
No-knocks have been a contentious issue for years, often uniting the left & right.
Taylor's death is not the first time these raids have been deadly. A @nytimes analysis found the warrants have resulted in at least 31 civilian and 8 police officer deaths. nytimes.com/interactive/20…
And, banning no-knocks could be politically popular for elected leaders because a majority of Americans support such efforts, including:
- 75% of Democrats
- 52% of Republicans