‘I feel relief.’ Lexington council votes to move forward ban on no-knock warrants
Lexington may soon become the second city in Kentucky to ban no-knock warrants.
The Lexington-Fayette Urban County Council voted 9 to 6 Tuesday to move forward an ordinance that bans no-knock warrants, which allow police to enter a home without knocking. The ordinance also stipulates how knock and announce warrants must be served.
The ordinance will get a first reading on Thursday. A final vote will come at the June 24 meeting.
Councilman James Brown, the only Black member of council, said his repeated pleas to address economic inequality, housing and gentrification issues on behalf of Black citizens have repeatedly been ignored. It was long past time for the council to address no-knock warrants, he said.
“This is one of the first steps that we can take to restore trust,” James Brown said.
The council did not restore an earlier provision that would have required officers to wait a minimum of 15 seconds before entering when using knock-and-announce warrants despite repeated pleas from members of the Black community to do so. Instead, officers would be able to pause ”a reasonable amount of time,” a standard that is vague and subjective, many Black leaders said.
Lexington Mayor Linda Gorton does not support a ban on no-knock warrants. She has issued a moratorium that allows for no-knock warrants with her approval. None has been served since she issued the moratorium in June 2020.
Gorton has not said if she will veto the prohibition if it passes. It takes nine votes to overturn a veto.
Lexington Police Chief Lawrence Weathers urged the council during its meeting Tuesday not to enact the no-knock ban. Lexington police are highly trained, rarely use no-knock warrants and need access to no-knock warrants in limited circumstances, he argued. The current process has several checks and balances and multiple layers of sign-offs before the warrants get to a judge.
It’s not fair to say that because police serving no-knock warrants have killed people in other cities, such as in Louisville, the same will happen in Lexington, Weathers said. The Lexington police department is highly trained.
“To lump them all together because of something that happened somewhere else is disingenuous,” Weathers said. “You have a great police department.”
But those that wanted the ban said it had nothing to do with police department support. Members of the community have repeatedly said they do not believe no-knock warrants are needed and they disproportionately are served on people of color.
Councilwoman Jennifer Reynolds said Gorton’s Commission on Racial Justice and Equality, who met for months and made 54 recommendations in October, recommended banning no-knock warrants. That commission was impaneled to give Black citizens an opportunity to weigh in on a host of issues.
“It would be a disservice to ignore all of their work and their recommendations,” Reynolds said.
Vice Mayor Steve Kay said of the four no-knock warrants Lexington police have served in the past five years, all were executed to preserve evidence in drug cases, despite Lexington police previously saying that they have been not used to preserve evidence.
“That’s in the records of the warrants,” Kay said.
“I believe strongly that we have a great police force and it’s lead by a great chief,” Kay said. Yet, the Black community has repeatedly said it does not want the police to use no-knock warrants.
“My sense is that the no-knock represents a threat ... a continuation of the way that they have been at the wrong end of police enforcement. I want them to have faith in the department,” Kay said. “What I don’t want to read is that there has been a shooting and no one will come forward and provide evidence to the police.”
Others said they trusted the police and Weathers.
“I believe such a tool should be available. Our police and our chief have that discretion and sound judgment and I trust them to use it,” said Councilman Preston Worley.
Councilman Fred Brown also said banning no-knocks was an overreaction.
“Banning no-knock search warrants is a gross overreaction based on our poor understanding as to when and how they are utilized,” Brown said. The city has a shortage of police officers currently due to plummeting morale, he said.
“Officers feel unsupported by community leaders, including the city council,” Brown said.
Those who voted against the ban were Worley, Fred Brown, Susan Lamb, Whitney Elliott Baxter, Richard Moloney and Amanda Bledsoe.
Worley, Bledsoe and Baxter voted for the ban when it passed the Planning and Public Safety Committee in May but reversed on Tuesday. Worley said his yes vote during that May committee meeting was to move the ordinance forward to Tuesday’s council work session.
Hours before the council voted on the no-knock warrant ban, Black faith leaders renewed their calls Tuesday for the council to pass the police reform measure.
“Today is the most important day, so far, in the quest for police reform,” said Rev. Joseph Owens, of Shiloh Baptist Church, reading from a letter to the council and Mayor Linda Gorton, signed by the Black faith leaders.
Owens and the other Black faith leaders gathered on the steps of Main Street Baptist Church to read the letter. The group marched from Main Street Baptist to city hall to hand-deliver the letters to the council and the mayor.
It was one year and four days ago the group first took letters to city leaders asking for substantial economic and police reforms in the wake of social justice marches and demonstrations sparked by the police killing of Breonna Taylor in Louisville and George Floyd in Minneapolis.
Any attempts to water down a complete ban on no-knock warrants is not acceptable, the leaders wrote.
“Passing a watered-down ordinance would do little or nothing to further the cause of local police reform and would send a very loud and clear message to approximately 48,000 Black people in Lexington and all Lexingtonians who seek police reform, that the LFUCG Council is content with creating the illusion of change, but is not committed to taking the stand for justice that is required,” Owens said.
Since the Planning and Public Safety Committee meeting in May, police and those who back a ban on no-knock warrants have ramped up lobbying the council. Several people, including members of the group LPD Accountability, have urged the council in public meetings over the past 30 days to pass the ban. Meanwhile, police have privately lobbied individual council members not to ban no-knock warrants.
Amid the ongoing debate, the Lexington Herald-Leader reported that in 2015, the city had to pay a $100,000 settlement to a Lexington homeowner after Lexington police raided the wrong home. The city implemented a host of changes after that botched no-knock warrant.
“It is quite disturbing that the Lexington Police Department believes that their track record, of only executing them properly 75 percent of the time, serves as a basis for supporting their continued use,” Owens said.
After the 9-6 vote, several members of the Black faith community expressed relief.
“I’m feeling relief,” said Dr. Anthony Everett. “I’m feeling joy. I think there is so much more that we have to do on the issue of public safety and the issues addressing the Black community.”
This story was originally published June 8, 2021 at 12:40 PM.
