When the Trump administration's Justice Department abandoned federal police reform efforts last May, Louisville took an unusual path — Mayor Craig Greenberg announced the city would continue implementing reforms on its own, without federal oversight or court enforcement.

One year into that voluntary effort, an investigation by ProPublica shows the results have been decidedly mixed, with police records revealing officers continue engaging in problematic practices the federal government had flagged years earlier.

The city's approach stands as a test case for police reform without federal teeth. Last May, as President Donald Trump settled into his second term, the Justice Department walked away from federal efforts to reform troubled police departments across the country, announcing its decision to not only drop lawsuits against two cities for unconstitutional policing but also retract findings of abuse in a half dozen other places.

Louisville responded differently. After the federal withdrawal, Mayor Craig Greenberg said Louisville would be "moving ahead rapidly" with reforms to its police department, which had been found to have a pattern of unconstitutional policing, adopting a version of the reform agreement Louisville had previously negotiated with the Biden administration and hiring an outside monitor to oversee its progress.

But one year into the city's reform effort, community leaders and civil rights advocates say the results have been mixed. The city has expanded a pilot program to direct some mental health calls away from police and send them instead to mental health specialists, yet a panel created to review the department's mental health practices overall only met for the first time in March, almost a year after it was announced, and it isn't scheduled to issue recommendations for another year.

The city's gaps in implementation became starkly apparent in March when 28-year-old Katelyn Hall was fatally shot by two Louisville Metro Police officers while experiencing a mental health crisis. A family member called 911 reporting that Hall had barricaded herself inside an apartment bathroom and was cutting her wrists. The department's diversion program did not apply in this case because police determined Hall was "armed with glass," and Louisville police policy dictates that if a weapon is present, mental health professionals cannot respond to the calls.

The Justice Department had identified similar issues in its 2023 investigation. The investigation found LMPD routinely violated residents' constitutional rights, used excessive force against protesters and disproportionately targeted Black people for low-level traffic offenses.

In the wake of Hall's death, though, Greenberg and Humphrey say they are now exploring whether police and mental health professionals should be allowed to respond together.

The stakes of relying on voluntary compliance without federal enforcement are significant. Legal experts warn that without court oversight, political will or budget pressures could derail reforms. Louisville has selected Effective Law Enforcement for All (ELEFA) as an independent monitor to oversee the city's police reform plan, with the organization providing semi-annual reports to the community and renewable monitoring services for up to five years.

Yet critics note the local approach lacks the binding power of federal consent decrees, where judges can enforce compliance. "What we do as a city, we make things look good on paper, but then in the application of it, it plays out so differently," said Shameka Parrish-Wright, a Louisville city council member and a candidate for mayor.