Lexington police chief: Change is likely if protesters, officials make compromises
After a week of protests downtown, Lexington Police Chief Lawrence Weathers said he believes there will be changes coming in law enforcement policies.
Police have been present at the protests every night since they started May 29. He said they have listened to the concerns of protesters, and there’s room for “compromise” between current policies and what demonstrators have sought.
“The probability for real change off of those demands and requests is probably pretty high, but like I say, there’s going to have to be some compromise in there because you’re not just dealing with one side,” Weathers said Friday. “You’re dealing with several, or multiple, sides.
“So I think at least having an open dialogue about them and discussing some of the pitfalls and discussing some of the advantages — I have to say there’s probably going to be some change with that.”
Weathers said he has “mixed feelings” about creating a citizen review board to assess police misconduct, which has been one of the more frequent requests from protesters and demonstrators. It was featured on a list of requests that black faith leaders delivered to Weathers and other Lexington officials during a demonstration Thursday.
“I think a lot of cities adopted them for transparency reasons, which I totally agree with. But some cities also adopted them thinking that it would end some of the friction between them and the community. And the research hasn’t really shown that. It’s shown that the transparency is good, but it hasn’t shown that the relationships with the community ... has improved.”
He said there may be other ways to improve that relationship that need local governments’ focus.
Lexington Mayor Linda Gorton said earlier this week she would be open to a citizen review board. But she added that the Lexington police union would have to approve it, and state law would have to be changed to permit it.
“They don’t want bad cops working here either,” Weathers said of the union. “So if somebody needs to go, the union is not going to fight that.”
Weathers also said no-knock search warrants are “a tool that you have to have available,” which has been another concern raised by protesters and black faith leaders. He said again that they are rarely used in Lexington and the policy on obtaining one is very stringent.
“To get a no-knock search warrant is not an easy thing,” Weathers said. “And I felt like, ‘Ok, we’re going to make it even harder.’ We haven’t executed a no-knock search warrant in almost over a year. So to do that, there has to be an exigency involving life.
“No-knock search warrants were made to minimize the possibility of somebody getting hurt, and that’s what you have to keep in mind. You can’t send somebody in there that’s not trained to do those.”
When he looks at instances where no-knock search warrants have gone wrong in other places, Weathers said he tries to take into account the officers who were assigned and what their training was.
Weathers and his officers have been focused on listening and understanding the concerns of the community during protests, he said. Thursday night, officers kept their riot gear off, and instead set up short barriers around the police station. They stood in front of the station and had discussions with protesters.
“We understood that the equipment was keeping some people from approaching us and talking to us. So we said ‘Well, we’ll try it this way and see how it works out.’”
Weathers said police took the concerns that protesters had and will look to use those concerns to change the way they operate, if possible.
“We’re taking it back and we’re seeing if it’s something we can do. Everybody thinks things can happen overnight, thinks policies and procedures can change overnight. You’ve got to see how they work, and if they’re tactically sound, and if they work on both sides.”
Protests are expected to continue through the weekend. Weathers said he wasn’t certain officers would continue to keep their riot gear off as the demonstrations continue.
“We look at each event separately, and we have to make those decisions on the fly, so I can’t say ‘this is how we’re going to be this night, or this is how we’re going to be another night.’ We just have to wait and see what happens.”
Lexington’s protests have remained mostly peaceful, aside from a few demonstrators who have been taken into police custody over the last week. That has not been the case in some other places. Violence has occurred at a few of Louisville’s protests, as seven people were shot in one night. Louisville officers and the National Guard were also involved in a shooting that killed restaurant owner David McAtee.
Nationwide, videos of police officers using force against protesters have gone viral. Weathers said some of the things he’s seen from officers leading up to and during these protests have concerned him, such as the video of Buffalo police officers knocking over an older man and then walking past him.
“I see some things like that on the news, and again I’m going, ‘What are they thinking?’,” he said.
This story was originally published June 5, 2020 at 5:13 PM.