Louisville police stop and search Black people 133% more than their White counterparts, according to an internal probe of law enforcement’s racist practices.
The problem is exacerbated by a lackluster leadership response that seeks to normalize the disparity, the report found.
During a press conference on Friday, Police Chief Paul Humphrey acknowledged racial profiling and disparities in overpolicing of the Black community. He also bemoaned the impact of crime on that community.
“There is going to be a disparity in stops. Plain and simple. There is a disparity in crime, and it would be improper of us to act like we police every problem the same way,” Humphrey said in a press conference.
The police department’s internal watchdog has warned of those types of disparities for years.
“The OIG has previously brought concerns involving potentially biased law-enforcement practices and inadequate internal investigations to LMPD leadership,” said Edward W. Harness the Inspector General of the Louisville Metropolitan Police Department. “In prior matters, the OIG identified failures to fully examine the legal and factual basis for questionable police actions, including whether officers possessed reasonable suspicion for certain investigative activity and whether enforcement decisions were applied consistently. Rather than engaging with the substance of those concerns, LMPD leadership dismissed or minimized the OIG’s findings.”
Significance. Results from the report found that Black people are searched more than twice as often as White people by the Louisville Metro Police Department during traffic stops, even though there are equal chances of finding illegal substances in cars driven by Black and White people.
When factoring in conditions of the stop, like location, age of the person being stopped, and reason for the stop, Black people were stopped 66% more than White people.
The study also found that Latino people were stopped significantly less than White and Black people. Latino drivers were stopped at rates 19.7% lower than White drivers. Latino drivers who had similar conditions to the traffic stop were stopped 52.9% less than White drivers by the Louisville police.
The data revealed that Asian drivers made up 1.54% of traffic stops and Native American drivers made up 0.27% of traffic stops.
The report looked at data from 2025 traffic stops conducted by the Louisville Metropolitan Police Department and found that there were significant disparities between the approaches to traffic stops on different races and ethnicities. The report was conducted by a third-party firm hired by the Louisville Metro Police Department after the Office of the Inspector General conducted an internal investigation into the police department and required that they hire a third party to look into racial disparities in traffic stops.
Overlooked Angle. Humphrey’s statement acknowledges the racial disparities in policing, yet places the blame solely on the Black communities being overpoliced. This circular argument is beneficial to the Louisville Metro Police Department, since they get to increase their statistics for arrests and effectiveness in the community by targeting Black people solely for the way they look and the color of their skin.
However, this also neglects to address the systemic racism practiced in policing. The Louisville Metro Police Department has a historic record of using racist practices in policing, such as racial profiling.
This report was sparked by a racist comment and racial profiling incident in February 2025 during a traffic stop made by a Louisville police officer. An officer reportedly admitted to an elderly White driver that he wouldn’t have pulled him over if he knew he was White. The driver filed a complaint, which led the Office of the Inspector General to investigate the Louisville Metro Police Department for racist traffic stops.
Power Structure. Louisville Metro Police Department only released part of the findings from the report and has yet to share the full results from the third-party investigation.
The Inspector General of the Louisville Metro Police Department said in a statement, “Although LMPD reportedly possessed the analysis before it became the subject of public reporting, the department did not affirmatively disclose or publicly address its findings. Critical internal analyses involving racial disparities should not become public only after media inquiry. Accountability cannot be purely reactive, and transparency should not depend upon external pressure.”
The Emancipator reached out to the Louisville Metro Police Department to ask when they plan to release all of the findings from the report, but did not get a response back.
What Experts Say. “Public statements minimizing the significance of the disparities or declining to examine officers and units displaying the widest differences are inconsistent with meaningful accountability. The proper response is not to debate whether the disparities are sufficiently large to warrant concern,” said Harness.
“The report also exposes a serious disconnect between LMPD’s public reform narrative and measurable enforcement outcomes. For the past two years, department leadership has emphasized policy revisions and asserted that LMPD is improving its practices and operating within the standards of the Community Commitment. Policy revision alone, however, does not establish reform. Reform must be measured by officer conduct, supervisory review, enforcement outcomes, transparency, and the department’s willingness to respond when its own data identify inequitable practices.”
