Josh Wood
@JWoodJourno
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Watchdog/news reporter @courierjournal // Former Middle East correspondent // Kentucky Colonel // Get in touch: jwood @gannett .com
Louisville, KY
Joined September 2009
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General advice for covering armed groups: It's journalistic malpractice to simply identify groups how they ideally would like to be identified. For example: If an armed militia in downtown Louisville tells you to call them patriots, you shouldn't call them patriots.
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One 2020 candidate says they want to save journalism in America - and they have a plan. My latest for
@NiemanLab
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This account - of a foreign journalist being arrested, manhandled and kept in a dirty cell for covering a protest - sounds like it could have been written about Cairo or Manama during the Arab Spring. But it's about
@AndrewBuncombe
's arrest in Seattle
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Days after the riot at the US Capitol, armed men gathered at Kentucky’s statehouse today - one bringing zip ties
Lawmakers exiting the statehouse are reminded by the crowd they “work for the people.” And the guy with zip ties said he brought them “just in case.”
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This is terrifying - from a Richard Spencer speech at an alt-right conference in DC this weekend.
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NEW: A former Louisville police officer used law enforcement software as part of a scheme that involved hacking the Snapchat accounts of young women and using sexually explicit photos and videos they had taken to extort them.
My latest for
@leoweekly
:
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If I took groups at their word overseas, Hezbollah would be a liberation movement and the Syrian Arab Army would solely be confronting terrorism. Armed groups in America today do the same thing and want to control the narrative and their perception.
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Personal/professional news 🚨: next week I'll be joining the
@courierjournal
's enterprise & investigations team.
Super excited to be part of such a talented staff. And super excited to start digging into stories that matter to Louisville.
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Louisville Police officers from an "elite" unit threw drinks at civilians from unmarked cars.
They recorded their attacks.
Today
@courierjournal
is publishing some of those videos, alongside a look at how that kind of misconduct proliferated. My latest:
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Everybody on my timeline is talking about Aleppo, except PEOTUS Trump who is talking about what magazines he likes and doesn't like.
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Context is everything. Same goes for police terms like "police-involved shooting" etc.
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Finally got my hands on a copy of the MBS propaganda magazine (courtesy of my father, who found it at a Walmart here in rural New Hampshire)
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In calling off planned protests at the 1967 Kentucky Derby amid high tensions in Louisville, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said: "Sometimes the prediction of a race riot is an invitation to riot,"
I've been thinking about that quote a lot since I first read it a few weeks ago.
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Personal news 🚨: This is my last week at LEO Weekly.
Last week, amid another round of layoffs/cost reductions, it became clear I would no longer have the room to do the kind of original reporting I’ve been doing for the last 18 months. So I decided to resign.
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When an officer was caught on camera firing pepper balls at a WAVE 3 crew on the 2nd night of Louisville's 2020 protests, LMPD said they would investigate.
2 years later, they haven't started an investigation into policy breaches
My latest for
@leoweekly
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Spotted in today’s Harlan Enterprise:
@KYLantern
stories from
@liamniemeyer
and
@mckennahorsley
.
The Lantern, which can be republished for free under Creative Commons, is such a valuable addition to the Kentucky media landscape.
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Blown away to have won
@SPJlouisville
Journalist of the Year last night for work I did with
@leoweekly
in 2022.
The work I've done in Louisville has been the highlight of my career. And every day I am inspired by the work done by the talented and dedicated journalists here.
Hearty congrats to
@courierjournal
@JWoodJourno
, SPJ Louisville’s Journalist of the Year. Well deserved. Turns out he did a shoot for Food & Wine Magazine along the way
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In Louisville police body cam footage I recently got via open records, the city blurred out moments of police misconduct citing privacy concerns.
Given they failed to redact SSNs & phone
#s
of private individuals elsewhere in that response, I wonder if it's really about privacy.
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Last night, at a press conference about an ethics complaint filed against him,
@LouisvilleMayor
called several stories I wrote about his admin “inaccurate.”
The Mayor’s Office never raised any alleged inaccuracies with us. I stand by my reporting.
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Where are Louisville’s ShotSpotter gunfire sensors?
According to data leaked to
@wired
, most are west of 9th Street in the predominantly Black West End.
Wired found ShotSpotters nationwide were disproportionately placed in low-income communities of color
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An LMPD officer stopped a woman changing her child’s diaper in a car parked in an alley. He ended up kneeling on her neck.
An off-duty officer chased and pulled a gun on a 17-year-old girl who passed him on the road.
Both remain on the force.
My latest:
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National reporters: If our reporting inspired your trip to Louisville and a good chunk of your story, please consider linking to us or name dropping us.
National news leans on local news. And local news is a constant struggle.
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Sources tell the
@courierjournal
the wife of Louisville's mayor has a Metro Hall office and directs staff
Separately, a SummerWorks intern listed their job as "Special Assistant to the First Lady."
The role might violate nepotism rules.
My latest:
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When asked about
#Syria
in NYT interview yesterday, Trump went off the record. Only time he went off record during the interview.
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Where did Louisville Metro Police officers throw drinks at pedestrians? I was able to geolocate 18 attacks and made a map.
Read the full story here:
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Yesterday I had to send in an open records request to a large, out-of-state police department. I got what I asked for in less than 8 hours.
In Louisville I consider myself lucky if I get just an acknowledgement of the request within the five business days allowed by law.
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DOJ: Louisville police arrest of protesters at July 24, 2020 protest in NuLu "unnecessary and unjustified, in violation of LMPD policy and the Constitution."
LMPD officers "mass-produced boilerplate citations" and used "guilt-by-association rationale."
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"In journalism, we sometimes indulge in the fantasy that our work will always have immediate impact, with every flaw we’ve exposed getting addressed and resolved within days, weeks or months...the reality is sometimes slow, incremental change over years."
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For the latest issue of
@leoweekly
, I wrote about
@RacingLouFC
star Dr.
@nadia_nadim
, who fled Taliban rule in her homeland and was smuggled into Europe as a child.
"Being a refugee is not something you’re going to be all your life," she said.
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In August, I filed an open records request for Louisville police search warrant applications cited by the Dept of Justice in its scathing March 2023 report on LMPD.
The city never responded to the open records request. Now
@courierjournal
is suing.
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Here's a transcript of a text message conversation between the ex-LMPD officer and one of the women that prosecutors included in a sentencing memorandum
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For years, a man asked his neighborhood association and Metro Parks why the water wasn't turned on at a park.
Within an hour of the
@courierjournal
asking the city about it, they got to work fixing it.
Local journalism has impacts.
From
@stephkuzy
:
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As this story gets national attention, a reminder that
@leoweekly
broke it.
We're a small alt-weekly. I'm the only writer dedicated to news. I had to delay the story because I had a copy editing shift the day I got the docs. Sharing our story means a lot.
A former Louisville Metro Police Department detective is possibly facing years in federal prison for using his law enforcement access to a database, obtaining information about women, and stealing sexually explicit photos and videos from them.
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I recently filed an open records request for vanity license plate requests rejected by Kentucky in 2022.
The results were weird. Here are a few of them.
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In addition to
@LouisvilleMayor
not calling on
@leoweekly
during yesterday's presser, looks like we were left out of the assigned seating at Metro Hall.
idk why the city would think I wouldn't attend the press conference about the thing I've reported on and asked about nonstop.
Media now allowed inside the Louisville mayor’s gallery, waiting for the DOJ’s presser later this morning.
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Louisville’s alt-weekly paper, LEO Weekly, was sold again this month.
To mark the occasion, its new owner, an exec in the company that previously owned LEO, provided a ctrl+c ctrl+v “[insert paper name] is important” quote.
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I'm incredibly proud of the work I've done at LEO. Working on impactful, local stories has been the highlight of my career.
Hoping to have some news to share on my next steps shortly. Stay tuned.
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In a previous role in Atlanta in 2003, Louisville's police chief was suspended for trying to access files related to a narcotics investigation targeting a relative and lying about it, records show.
My latest for
@courierjournal
:
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It's apparently published by the National Enquirer, an actual purveyor of fake news. You can't make this stuff up.
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On the front page of today’s
@courierjournal
: my story on the Louisville Metro Police Department’s complicated, frustrating and potentially intimidating civilian complaint process.
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The headline on this fawning Saudi Gazette story about MBS's Bloomberg interview is unintentional (or perhaps intentional?) comedic gold
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Thanks for all the kind words today. It means a lot.
For those who asked: I'm staying in Louisville.
Local journalism needs more support now than ever. Subscribe to your local paper. Share links of stories you like. Back non-profits. All of that helps keep journalism alive.
Personal news 🚨: This is my last week at LEO Weekly.
Last week, amid another round of layoffs/cost reductions, it became clear I would no longer have the room to do the kind of original reporting I’ve been doing for the last 18 months. So I decided to resign.
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So, earlier this month I started as the
@courierjournal
's Watchdog/News Reporter.
What does that mean? Well, my beat is flexible, but my work is largely going to deal with accountability.
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The city can not call on me at press conferences, duck calls and emails and play games with my open records requests, but none of that has deterred me — nor will it deter me — from getting the answers I'm looking for.
I'll keep breaking stories whether y'all talk to me or not.
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Six years ago we learned that my good friend Peter Kassig had been murdered by ISIS. Peter's philosophy was simple: Do the right thing, help people in need, don’t wait for others to fix things, live each day to its fullest. He was an inspiration. But his death hurts every day.
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An inmate at Louisville's jail was locked in an "attorney booth" for 18 hours.
Guards were meant to check on her every 20 minutes. They didn't.
A breach of policy investigation concluded her suicide might have been prevented.
My latest for
@leoweekly
:
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Scenes from a trip through West Virginia and eastern Kentucky this week:
The Mountaineer Hotel in Williamson, WV (unfortunately closed)
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Today, LMPD released body cam footage of the Feb. 20 shooting of two teens in the West End.
Before the shooting, the officer trapped a group of teens in a garage, did not identify himself as a police officer or try to demand their surrender. My story:
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According to an internal email obtained by the
@courierjournal
, the wife of Louisville's mayor has a city-issued iPhone, computer and email address.
The memo to Metro Hall staff followed our reporting on her role in the administration.
My latest:
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On Twitter, Louisville Mayor Craig Greenberg says Breonna Taylor was murdered by Louisville police — strongest wording from a Louisville mayor or police chief I've seen regarding her death three years ago.
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At least 2x in recent weeks, major Louisville news outlets - including
@courierjournal
&
@LouPubMedia
- did not receive timely notices for important press conferences the mayor was holding.
That has raised concerns about transparency. From
@ByRobertoR
:
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While LMPD rolled out the red carpet for the NYT...for a story I'm working on, I pressed to interview several people. LMPD said I could talk to one, but only by submitting FOUR written questions. I sent five. A month later, still no response, but they say it's coming...
Meanwhile, local reporters in Louisville have to beg LMPD for days to get even basic questions answered (or outright ignored) and sue for open records.
Fun!
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"What took the DOJ two years to uncover could have been summed up in a 10-minute conversation with just about any Black person living west of 9th Street," writes
@Armon_R_perry
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On the front page of today’s
@courierjournal
:
-My story on how interns with close Greenberg connections were hired to work at Metro Hall through a program aimed at disadvantaged youth.
-
@KristaJ1993
with the latest on JCPS’s rocky start to the school year.
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Apparently this is “JUST IN” even though
@TessaDuvall
and
@dctello
had this more than 48 hours ago for
@courierjournal
JUST IN: Internal investigation finds officers shouldn't have shot into Breonna Taylor's apartment
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Hello 👋
It's been two months since I joined the
@courierjournal
(seen here on a moody day the other week).
Here are some of the things I've done since starting there 🧵
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The last week has been pretty hard but my emotional support pit bull makes things significantly better than they would be.
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LMPD training materials portrayed police as avengers who carry out God's wrath.
My latest for
@leoweekly
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Between Nov. 29 and Feb. 6 - a span of just 69 days - a total of 6 people died at Louisville's jail.
Five had been recommended for release but remained in custody.
For weeks I've been looking into recent jail deaths for
@leoweekly
. Here's what we found
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"I assumed that once jail officials had been informed I was a reporter, I'd simply be let go," he writes.
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Re people thinking marijuana is fine in Louisville because we've had de facto decriminalization since 2019: The DOJ found that in 2021, LMPD charged Black people with marijuana possession more than SIX TIMES the rate of white people.
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I recently realized that the 90-page DOJ report on the Louisville Metro Police Department didn't even mention the Explorer scandal, which makes me wonder if DOJ was only looking at misconduct and unconstitutional policing in more recent years.
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Saddened and angered by the murder of Alan Henning by IS. Praying for my good friend Peter Kassig, one of the best people I know.
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I didn’t even know Barbar had shutters; It’s open 24/7 and even stayed open during times of war. What a sight.
#Lebanon
: Tourism police are shutting down restaurants in
#Beirut
and across the country in a bid to limit the spread of
#Coronavirus
.
الحق في الوصول الى الشاورما يكفله الدستور.
المادة 139\ج.
#Photojournalism
#Covid_19
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Today I have two stories out today in the
@courierjournal
dealing with Louisville Metro Police Department misconduct complaints.
The first is a deep look into the complicated, intimidating process civilians filing complaints face.
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Hey look, it’s my name in print again (alongside
@oliviakrauth
,
@oliviamevans_
and
@Joe_Gerth
on this Election Day wrap)
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For the latest issue of
@leoweekly
, I took a look at where six recent local unionization efforts stand.
Featuring:
@CJNewsGuild
,
@HBWorkersUnion
,
@LvillePD_Union
,
@SunergosUnion
,
@RWU_louisville
&
@SBWorkersUnited
Check out the story here:
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Have you ever wondered who the mayor invites to the Kentucky Derby?
For years, the city kept guests secret, saying disclosure could harm business prospects.
Through open records, I learned the names of some folks Mayor Greenberg is inviting this year.
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To fill a vacant airport board position, Louisville Mayor Craig Greenberg recommended Metro Council approve an applicant whose family donated $13k to his campaign. The applicant only submitted a two-sentence resume.
Good digging from
@ellie_mccrary
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Erdogan, who jailed more journalists than any other leader last year, applauds Trump putting journo "in his place"
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This is one of the men being considered for homeland security chief under Trump administration.
How to stop riots. 1)Declare state of emergency.2)Impose early curfew. 3)Mobilize Nat Guard.4)Authorize ALL non lethal force. 5)Tear gas.
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This NYTMag writer leaves out that the protester Evans struck didn't just have a wound that required 3 staples to close — he lost hearing for a week & suffered from nausea and dizziness for weeks.
Feds aggressively prosecuted this, in part, because you can kill someone like this
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Public & press again barred from Louisville police contract negotiations.
“This was one of the 1st steps that the mayor could have made to ensure us that this was going to be a concerted effort to do things differently," -
@LouisvilleUL
's Kish Cumi Price
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In 2020, police viewed protesters throwing two water bottles at a drone (and missing) as a justification to use force and fire pepper balls at a small crowd.
@RyanVanVelzer
wrote about that episode here:
Louisville Police officers from an "elite" unit threw drinks at civilians from unmarked cars.
They recorded their attacks.
Today
@courierjournal
is publishing some of those videos, alongside a look at how that kind of misconduct proliferated. My latest:
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My
@leoweekly
story on the findings of the wide-ranging DOJ investigation into LMPD:
Feds: Louisville Police ‘Routinely’ Engaged In Unconstitutional Practices, ‘Harmed’ Black Community. Consent Decree Coming.
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Since
@courierjournal
published the Slushygate videos last week & a deep dive on Ninth Mobile, I've seen a few comments questioning why we are reporting on something that happened 4-5 years ago. 🧵
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In addition to the Journalist of the Year award, I also picked up first place in crime/courts/criminal justice reporting and first place in personality/profile writing 🧵
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"A
@courierjournal
review of 35 Kentucky agencies' policies found that 70% restrict or prohibit employees from talking to news outlets − some in ways that legal scholars say are unconstitutional."
@adwolfson
looks at "censorship by PIO" in Kentucky.
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Per
@AP
:
In response to
@courierjournal
's open records lawsuit,
@LouisvilleMayor
calls LMPD failure to respond to search warrant records request "unacceptable" & says he directed LMPD & records dept to take "immediate steps" to respond to requests.
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Louisville's inspector general's office is charged with independently investigating citizen complaints of police misconduct. But the inspector general says LMPD is blocking access to the information his office needs to do those investigations.
My latest:
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A Louisville Metro Police Department training course aimed to have recruits be able to "identify aspects of Hispanic/Latino culture that may pose hazards to law enforcement.” My latest for
@leoweekly
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The latest issue of
@leoweekly
features a cover drawing by
@MurphyCartoons
displaying the names of the 12 people who died in the custody of Louisville’s jail between Nov. 29, 2021 and Oct. 4 of this year.
Inside, you’ll find a story about who a few of those people were.
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LMPD: An officer accidentally discharged their firearm last night while trying to detain a teen as others fled. Later, two teens showed up at hospitals with gunshot wounds and were tied to the scene of the discharge through evidence.
Stops short of saying officer shot them.
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LEO's reporting bona fides are right there in the absolutely damning 90-page DOJ report, which brought up incidents we first reported.
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INBOX: A Louisville Metro Police Department says firearm instructor "discharged his weapon, and a bullet struck a recruit during a training exercise. The recruit was struck in his bullet resistant vest and appeared to sustain minor injuries."
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McGrath is running for senate in Kentucky. The Breonna Taylor case is and has been the biggest story in Kentucky. “We unfortunately do have to get going,” a staffer said when reporter in Paducah tried to ask McGrath about Taylor case.
McGrath refused to take questions from press in Paducah after the indictments in the Breonna Taylor case were announced.
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At today's press conference announcing the findings of the DOJ investigation into LMPD,
@LouisvilleMayor
seemed to call on every major local news outlet for questions except for
@leoweekly
and
@SpectrumNews1KY
.
A spox for the mayor told me the DOJ determined who would be called.
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Left protest site in downtown Louisville prematurely after getting circled up by some folks, some of them who had batons, while doing an interview. Accused of not writing down what interview subject was saying, recording w/out permission and told to leave. Stay safe y'all.
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Good morning! I'm the
@courierjournal
's Watchdog/News Reporter 👋
What does that mean?
Well, I cover a lot of things. But chiefly, it means accountability. 🧵
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Sometimes I have to remind myself that I'm not in the Middle East anymore. It can be hard.
The very rude elevator screamers are paid professionals only looking to make Senators look bad. Don’t fall for it! Also, look at all of the professionally made identical signs. Paid for by Soros and others. These are not signs made in the basement from love!
#Troublemakers
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DOJ: "Some LMPD officers routinely threw garbage out of their cars while on duty."
Reporting a recent story, I came across a body cam footage of an officer casually tossing garbage out of his squad car while driving to respond to a call.
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A Louisville police officer:
-Used phone while driving 100+ mph
-Aimed gun out car window
-Slammed surrendered suspect's head into ground & said he'd treat him like an "animal"
Multiple supervisors reviewed the incident and found nothing wrong. My latest:
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Stunningly good work from
@mck_beth
on how the UAE has quietly taken over the sleepy Yemeni island of Socotra, a place far removed from the war the UAE is fighting in Yemen. Emirati flags fly, kids beg for dirhams and rumors of an annexation vote.
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I'm assuming this is response to Rouhani saying this: "America should know that peace with Iran is the mother of all peace, and war with Iran is the mother of all wars"
To Iranian President Rouhani: NEVER, EVER THREATEN THE UNITED STATES AGAIN OR YOU WILL SUFFER CONSEQUENCES THE LIKES OF WHICH FEW THROUGHOUT HISTORY HAVE EVER SUFFERED BEFORE. WE ARE NO LONGER A COUNTRY THAT WILL STAND FOR YOUR DEMENTED WORDS OF VIOLENCE & DEATH. BE CAUTIOUS!
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There's been a lot of confusion about what happened at yesterday's Louisville Metro Police press conference, folks coming away believing the new chief imposed discipline - and even terminated people - after reviewing incidents cited in the DOJ report.
That didn't happen. 🧵
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#Lebanon
towns are moving to shut down Syrian-owned and operated businesses. People are getting desperate. My story:
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