500 signatures reached
To: Louisville Metro City Council
Vote to approve the #InvestDivest Budget Amendment
Divest $50 million from the Louisville Metro Police Department (LMPD). Invest those funds into struggling social service departments & initiatives across the city. Stop rewarding police for their patterns of racism and misconduct.
Why is this important?
This is important because social service departments are struggling while LMPD is paid to terrorize communities.
INVEST/DIVEST BUDGET AMENDMENT
The Louisville Metro City Council should substantially decrease the $200 million+ LMPD budget by redirecting 25% ($50 million) to significantly reduce anti-Black harm. More than 20,000 emails, tweets, and calls from Louisville residents have demanded for a substantial divestment from LMPD.
Police do not keep us safe
Violent killings have increased proportionate to the increased police budget. How many more Breonna Taylors have to die? Officers who shoot in cold blood have a history of police brutality complaints. When Sgt. Jonathan Mattingly, (one of the men who shot Breonna Taylor), noted that by killing Breonna he did the “legal, moral, and ethical thing that night.” Officer Brad Schuhman (LMPD officer who sexually assaulted children) would serve no prison time. This same officer was awarded a salary increase after committing sexual assault.
LMPD hid evidence in more than 730,000 sexual assault cases where officers were the abusers. We must not reward these practices with increased funding. COPS ERASE THEIR CRIMES and are rarely held accountable. Despite diversity and sensitivity training, LMPD savagely beat a peaceful protester weeks ago. Throwing money at LMPD yields a terrible ROI. When asked about the new budget, police chief Erika Shields didn’t know the answer to 40% of the questions asked by Metro Council during the budget hearing. LMPD makes up about 40% of the budget, yet they only solve about 30% of homicides. Even the police chief admitted that LMPD should not be in charge of these programs.
Rather than deploying police we can invest in mental health, code enforcement, career development, universal income, etc. Let’s divest from LMPD and invest in the community.
This proposal solves a major safety issue by significantly reducing the police budget to decrease their access to tools of aggression. When police are no longer incentivized to kill Black people, we can finally breathe.