The Louisville Metro Police Department (LMPD) began operations on January 6, 2003, as part of the creation of the consolidated city-county government in Louisville, Kentucky, United States. It was formed by the merger of the Jefferson County Police Department and the Louisville Division of Police. The Louisville Metro Police Department has been headed by Jacquelyn Gwinn-Villaroel since January 2, 2023. LMPD divides Jefferson County into eight patrol divisions and operates a number of special investigative and support units. The LMPD is currently negotiating a consent decree with the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) subsequent to a 2023 investigation by the DOJ that concluded that the LMPD engaged in a decades long pattern of civil rights abuses.
Steve Henry is an American politician and orthopedic surgeon who was the 52nd Lieutenant Governor of Kentucky from 1995 through 2003. He twice ran unsuccessfully in statewide elections, finishing third in Democratic primaries for the United States Senate in 1998 and for Governor of Kentucky in 2007.
William Pelham Barr is an American attorney who served as the United States attorney general in the administration of President George H. W. Bush from 1991 to 1993 and again in the administration of President Donald Trump from 2019 to 2020.
The Attorney General's Advisory Committee of United States Attorneys (AGAC), is a committee of the United States Department of Justice.
As established and defined by the Kentucky Constitution, the government of the Commonwealth of Kentucky is composed of three branches: the Executive, Judicial, and Legislative.
Amul Roger Thapar is an American attorney and jurist serving as a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. He previously served as a U.S. district judge of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky from 2008 to 2017 and as the United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Kentucky from 2006 to 2008. Thapar was President Donald Trump's first Court of Appeals appointment and Trump's second judicial appointment after Justice Neil Gorsuch. Thapar was discussed as a candidate for the Supreme Court of the United States.
Thomas E. Delahanty II was an American lawyer and former judge. He was the former United States Attorney for the District of Maine.
David Jason Hale is a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Western District of Kentucky and former United States attorney for the Western District of Kentucky.
John Morgan McGarvey is an American attorney and politician serving as the U.S. representative for Kentucky's 3rd congressional district since 2023. A Democrat, he represented the 19th district in the Kentucky Senate from 2013 to 2023. In 2018, he was elected minority leader, becoming one of the youngest members of a general assembly in the nation to serve in a leadership role. He is currently the only Democrat in Kentucky's congressional delegation.
Andrew Graham Beshear is an American attorney and politician who has served as the 63rd governor of Kentucky since 2019. A member of the Democratic Party, he is the son of former Governor Steve Beshear.
The 2019 Kentucky gubernatorial election took place on November 5, 2019, to elect the governor and lieutenant governor of Kentucky. The Democratic nominee, Kentucky Attorney General Andy Beshear, defeated Republican incumbent Matt Bevin by just over 5,000 votes, or 0.37%, making this the closest gubernatorial election in Kentucky since 1899 by total votes, and the closest since 1915 by percentage. It was also the closest race of the 2019 gubernatorial election cycle.
On October 24, 2018, a man and woman were shot and killed by a gunman at a Kroger grocery store in Jeffersontown, Kentucky, a suburb of Louisville.
Alberta Odell Jones was an African-American attorney and civil rights icon. She was one of the first African-American women to pass the Kentucky bar and the first woman appointed city attorney in Jefferson County. She was murdered by an unknown person.
Daniel Jay Cameron is an American attorney and politician who served as the 51st attorney general of Kentucky from 2020 to 2024. A member of the Republican Party, Cameron was the first African American, and the first Republican since 1943, to be elected to the office. He was the Republican nominee in the 2023 Kentucky gubernatorial election, losing to incumbent Democrat Andy Beshear.
Timothy Shea is an American attorney and prosecutor who served as acting Administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration from 2020 to 2021. Previously, he was interim United States attorney for the District of Columbia, the country's largest U.S. attorney's office; a senior counselor to U.S. Attorney General William Barr at the Department of Justice; a lobbyist; and private corporate lawyer.
On March 13, 2020, Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old Black American woman, was fatally shot in her Louisville, Kentucky apartment when at least seven police officers forced entry into the apartment as part of an investigation into drug dealing operations. Three Louisville Metro Police Department (LMPD) officers—Jonathan Mattingly, Brett Hankison, and Myles Cosgrove—were involved in the shooting. Taylor's boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, was inside the apartment with her when the plainclothes officers knocked on the door and then forced entry. The officers said that they announced themselves as police before forcing entry, but Walker said he did not hear any announcement, thought the officers were intruders, and fired a warning shot at them. The shot hit Mattingly in the leg, and the officers fired 32 shots in return. Walker was unhurt but Taylor, who was behind Walker, was hit by six bullets and died. During the incident, Hankison moved to the side of the apartment and shot 10 bullets through a covered window and glass door. According to police, Taylor's home was never searched.
In June 2020, the Trump administration began deploying federal law enforcement forces to select cities in the United States in response to rioting and monument removals amid the George Floyd protests. Federal law enforcement elements were deployed under Operation Legend, Operation Diligent Valor, and the Protecting American Communities Task Force (PACT). The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) cited an executive order regarding "monuments, memorials and statues" as allowing federal officers to be deployed without the permission of individual U.S. states, as the federal government "has the right to enforce federal laws, investigate crimes and make arrests" within states.
Operation Legend or Operation LeGend was a federal law enforcement operation in the United States initiated by the administration of President Donald Trump. The operation was named after four-year-old LeGend Taliferro, who was shot and killed in Kansas City, Missouri, on June 29, 2020. According to the White House, Operation Legend was implemented after President Trump began deploying federal law enforcement agents to fight violent crime in the wake of the George Floyd protests. For Operation Legend, agents from various federal agencies were deployed to aid and assist city and county law enforcement officers.
The Breonna Taylor protests were a series of police brutality protests surrounding the killing of Breonna Taylor. Taylor was a 26-year-old African-American woman who was fatally shot by plainclothes officers of the Louisville Metro Police Department on March 13, 2020. Police were initially given "no-knock" search warrant, but orders were changed to "knock and announce" before the raid. Taylor's boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, who was inside the apartment with her during the raid, said he thought the officers were intruders. He fired one shot, hitting officer Mattingly in the leg, and the officers fired 32 shots in return, killing Taylor.
Pamela D. Stevenson is an American politician, attorney, and retired U.S. Air Force Colonel. She is a Democrat and represents District 43 in the State House. In 2023, she unsuccessfully ran as the Democratic nominee in the 2023 Kentucky Attorney General election losing to Republican nominee Russell Coleman.
