LOUISVILLE, Ky. – In a significant development, a federal judge in Kentucky has nullified Louisville’s proposed settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice concerning police reforms. This decision follows the Justice Department’s earlier withdrawal of support for the plan.

Back in May, the Justice Department decided to cancel proposed consent decrees with both Louisville and Minneapolis. These agreements were initially designed to address police racial bias and misconduct, issues that gained national attention following the tragic deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. Their deaths ignited widespread protests across the country during the summer of 2020.

In a ruling issued on December 31, U.S. District Judge Benjamin Beaton emphasized that the leadership of the Louisville Metro Police Department must remain under the guidance of the city’s elected officials and the community they represent. This underscores the belief that local governance should steer the department’s adherence to federal laws.

Earlier this year, a similar legal outcome occurred in Minneapolis, where a judge dismissed the city’s proposed consent decree. This arrangement would have appointed a federal officer to oversee the implementation of the agreed-upon reforms.

Under President Joe Biden’s administration, the Justice Department embarked on an extensive investigation in Louisville, spurred by Breonna Taylor’s fatal shooting and subsequent police responses to the 2020 protests. The probe culminated in an early 2023 draft report, which accused the Louisville Police Department of racial discrimination against Black individuals, excessive use of force, and conducting searches based on invalid warrants.

New DOJ leadership accused the Biden Justice Department of using flawed legal theories to judge police departments and pursuing costly and burdensome consent decrees.

The consent decrees with Louisville and Minneapolis were approved by the Justice Department in the final weeks of the Biden administration, but the settlements had to be approved by a judge.

Beaton wrote that his ruling “doesn’t prevent the parties from undertaking the hard work of reform themselves.”

Louisville Mayor Craig Greenberg pledged to continue to pursue reform after the Justice Department’s withdrawal of support in May. The city created a local police reform plan and hired an independent law enforcement consulting group as monitor. Greenberg said some of the progress in 2025 included addressing a backlog of open records requests and making police shooting body camera videos public within 10 business days.

In a statement Friday, a spokesman for the mayor said Greenberg is “committed to ongoing reforms” and “did something no mayor in the country has done — he voluntarily created and implemented” Louisville’s own reform plan.

The city initiated some reforms after Taylor’s death in March 2020, including a city law banning the use of “no-knock” warrants. The warrants were typically used in surprise drug raids. The city also started a pilot program that sends behavioral health professionals to some 911 calls.

The city also paid a $12 million wrongful death settlement to Taylor’s family.

Earlier this year, former Louisville Police Detective Brett Hankison became the first officer involved in the Taylor raid to go to prison. A judge sentenced Hankison to nearly three years in prison on an excessive force conviction despite the Justice Department’s efforts to reduce his sentence to one day of time served.

Hankison shot 10 rounds after police were fired on by Taylor’s boyfriend from inside her apartment. Hankison shot blindly into Taylor’s windows but didn’t strike anyone inside or in a neighboring apartment.