City to hire expert to determine appropriate size of police force

I'm sorry, did we go to a different police academy? Since when is STATE LAW a policy? That's part of LMPD's problem - they don't follow state law in many ways ... they prefer to apparently just follow their own laws. Following the law is "square?" If we followed the law, maybe we wouldn't GET SUED in the first place. Don't like that law, call your state legislator and seek to change it, but it is there for a very, very good reason ... so that people can see that a vehicle is publicly owned and pay attention to the driver ...

That's what amazed me when I came here, how many LMPD officers think that LMPD policy is "the law" - and think that state laws are somehow "just policy." I kept hearing WE don't have to do X, and I kept thinking, is Louisville somehow not in Kentucky? (I know the rest of the state often wishes it isn't, but that is another story.) I heard, deputy sheriffs can't take their cars out of county - sure they can, if the sheriff allows them to do so - that's POLICY - and yet hear, the sheriff COULD hire an Indiana resident if he wanted to - NO HE CANNOT - that is state law. An amazing amount of what is in the LMPD SOPs is, in fact, state law, but you wouldn't know it by reading it, and that leads to assumptions that somehow it could be changed. The 12 hour shift thing goes back to state law, it can be done, but very carefully to avoid wage and hour issues. Court pay when not on duty is negotiated - but in fact, it is also a wage and hour issue - every agency handles it differently. (And in some places, they try to ensure that officers aren't called to court unless needed - something Jefferson County can't seem to manage - in one county, as the judge puts it, if you summon the officer you better be prepared to go THAT DAY - none of these endless continuances.)