By Andrew Goudsward and Sarah N. Lynch
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Louisville, Kentucky struck an agreement with the U.S. Justice Department on Thursday to reform its police department after an investigation prompted by the 2020 killing of Breonna Taylor found a pattern of discrimination against Black residents.
The agreement, known as a consent decree, commits Louisville to take steps to overhaul training and policies to focus on de-escalation.
“This is a unique agreement that focuses on accountability and rapid improvements without ballooning costs that could compromise other investments that our city so desperately needs,” Louisville Mayor Craig Greenberg said at a press conference.
Taylor, a 26-year-old emergency medical technician, was asleep in bed with her boyfriend on March 13, 2020, when Louisville police executing a no-knock warrant burst into her apartment. Her boyfriend fired at them believing they were intruders and police returned fire, fatally shooting Taylor.
The shooting helped touch off a nationwide protest movement over police killings in 2020.
The agreement is the latest attempt by the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division to wrap up ongoing police oversight work before Republican President-elect Donald Trump takes office next month.
The division also on Thursday released findings in its investigation into police in the New York City suburb of Mount Vernon. It found police routinely use excessive force, make arrests without proper justification and conduct unlawful strip searches.
The Justice Department has announced findings in four “pattern-or-practice” investigations into police departments since Trump’s election win, speeding up its prior pace. Four investigations remain pending.
The Justice Department curtailed civil rights investigations into police departments during Trump’s first term and is expected to again in his second term.
The report credited the police in Mount Vernon, north of New York City, with overhauling policies and increasing training on strip searches.
A Mount Vernon city spokesperson did not immediately comment.
The Justice Department report found that in June 2020, two women who were 65 and 75 at the time were forced to disrobe and were subjected to body cavity searches after police falsely accused them of engaging in a hand-to-hand drug transaction.
Although Mount Vernon police records claimed the incident was the only wrongful strip search conducted in 10 years, the two female detectives who performed the search said they routinely had all female arrestees undergo a strip and cavity search as part of routine practice.
(Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch, Andrew Goudsward and Katharine Jackson; Editing by Scott Malone)
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