{"id":175843,"date":"2020-11-13T19:03:00","date_gmt":"2020-11-14T00:03:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2020\/11\/13\/support-your-local-police\/"},"modified":"2020-11-13T19:03:00","modified_gmt":"2020-11-14T00:03:00","slug":"support-your-local-police","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2020\/11\/13\/support-your-local-police\/","title":{"rendered":"Support Your Local Police"},"content":{"rendered":"

Louisville, Kentucky Metro Police aggressively covered up allegations of child rape by two officers on the force<\/a>. <\/p>\n

When you talk about the “Thin Blue Line”, this is it, and if you support it you are supporting lawlessness by law enforcement: <\/p>\n

Louisville Metro Police concealed at least 738,000 records documenting the sexual abuse of Explorer Scouts by two officers \u2014 then lied to keep the files from the public, records show.<\/p>\n

The Courier Journal last year requested all records regarding sexual abuse of minors by two officers in the Explorer Scout program for youths interested in law enforcement careers.<\/p>\n

Police officials and the Jefferson County Attorney\u2019s Office said they couldn’t comply, insisting all the records had been turned over to the FBI for its investigation.<\/p>\n

But that wasn’t true, according to records The Courier Journal recently obtained in the appeal of its open records case. <\/p>\n

In fact, the department still had at least 738,000 records, which the city allowed to be deleted.<\/p>\n

The records could shed light on when department and city officials first learned of allegations of sexual abuse of youths by officers in the program and what the officials did \u2014 or failed to do \u2014 about it.<\/p>\n

“I have practiced open records law since the law was enacted 45 years ago, and I have never seen anything so brazen,” said Jon Fleischaker, an attorney for The Courier Journal. “I think it an outrage.”<\/p>\n

\u2026\u2026\u2026<\/p>\n

In a tweet, Councilman Anthony Piagentini, R-19th, said: “There aren\u2019t the appropriate words to describe how indefensible this is. The administration oversaw the sexual exploitation of minors and then deleted evidence.”<\/p>\n

\u2026\u2026\u2026<\/p>\n

In May and July of 2019, Courier Journal reporter Matt Glowicki filed requests for LMPD’s investigative files on officers Brandon Wood <\/a>and Kenneth Betts<\/a>, who were accused of sexually abusing youths in the Explorer program.<\/p>\n

LMPD records custodian Alicia Smiley responded that “any records \u2026 would previously have been turned over to the FBI,\u201d which headed a joint task force that is still investigating the program. <\/p>\n

When The Courier Journal appealed the denial of its request to the attorney general\u2019s office, Assistant Jefferson County Attorney Annale Taylor told the attorney general’s office the same thing. <\/p>\n

\u2026\u2026\u2026<\/p>\n

In fact, LMPD still had hundreds of thousands of records on the Explorer investigation in its possession \u2014 despite saying it didn’t.<\/p>\n

\u2026\u2026\u2026 <\/a><\/p>\n

Fifteen days after telling the attorney general’s office the department had no records, Taylor advised in a second letter dated Sept. 18, 2019, LMPD had found about\u201c9,000 documents\u201d on a \u201chidden folder.\u201d <\/p>\n

But instead of keeping them, in response to The Courier Journal\u2019s appeal in the open records case, the city\u2019s information technology team removed the records and gave them to the FBI. <\/p>\n

It turned out far more documents \u2014 hundreds of thousands \u2014 were found and deleted. <\/p>\n

\u2026\u2026\u2026<\/p>\n

The Explorer scandal began to unfold in October 2016, when the police department confirmed an officer was under investigation for his conduct in the program for young people considering careers in law enforcement.
<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It gets even sleazier, one of the officers involved in the scandal had early allegations of sex abuse but got into the force anyway<\/a>: <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\n

The former head of the scandal-ridden Louisville Explorer program investigated allegations in 2002 that then-scout Kenneth Betts groped a girl but said he \u201cforgot\u201d about it when sex abuse claims arose against Betts 11 years later when he was an officer. <\/p>\n

The now-retired official, Curtis Flaherty, also wrote a letter of recommendation for Betts roughly three years later when Betts applied to join the Louisville Metro Police Department as an officer.<\/span> <\/p>\n

\u2026\u2026\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n

The former head of the scandal-ridden Louisville Explorer program investigated allegations in 2002 that then-scout Kenneth Betts groped a girl but said he \u201cforgot\u201d about it when sex abuse claims arose against Betts 11 years later when he was an officer. <\/p>\n

The now-retired official, Curtis Flaherty, also wrote a letter of recommendation for Betts roughly three years later when Betts applied to join the Louisville Metro Police Department as an officer.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

An I the only one thinking that Breonna Taylor was not an anomaly?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Louisville, Kentucky Metro Police aggressively covered up allegations of child rape by two officers on the force. When you talk about the “Thin Blue Line”, this is it, and if you support it you are supporting lawlessness by law enforcement: Louisville Metro Police concealed at least 738,000 records documenting the sexual abuse of Explorer Scouts …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[368,364,526],"class_list":["post-175843","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-corruption","tag-evil","tag-law-enforcement-misconduct"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175843"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=175843"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175843\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=175843"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=175843"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=175843"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}