As we noted two weeks ago, the Lexington-Fayette County Urban-County Council wanted to ban no knock warrants. Well, on Friday morning, they got that done:
By Jeremy Chisenhall | June 25, 2021 | 11:59 AM EDT | Updated: June 25, 2021 | 2:44 PM EDT
Lexington Mayor Linda Gorton has signed into law an ordinance which bans no-knock warrants in Fayette County, she told the Herald-Leader Friday morning.
The Lexington council approved the ordinance Thursday night in a 10-5 vote, but Gorton had the option to sign it or veto it. The council would’ve needed at least nine votes in favor of the ordinance to override the veto. But Gorton signing the document made it law, effective immediately.
Gorton previously voiced opposition to totally banning no-knock warrants in Lexington. But she signed the ordinance into law after hearing from local residents who wanted to ban no-knock warrants during the council’s public comment section Thursday.
Further down:
Rev. Clark Williams is a member of a group of Black faith leaders in Lexington who have pushed for a ban on no-knock warrants for more than a year. He said the enacted ban was a “relief” and the Black faith leaders want to work with those on the other side of the issue.
“I’m hopeful those who are on the other side of the issue can appreciate that we disagreed on the issue, but there is absolutely no reason for this to be viewed as an adversarial situation,” he said. “ … No one in Lexington wants the city to be any safer than we do, and so we all have a vested interest in that.”
If no one wants the city to be any safer than (they) do, why take a very infrequently used tool out of the hands of the police? All that can do is make things safer for the criminals! The Lexington Fraternal Order of Police vociferously opposed this move, as did Police Chief Lawrence Weathers.
The problem is simple: in our urban black communities, they dislike the police more than they dislike the criminals in their midst. They are like the Palestinians in Gaza, tolerating, feeding, supporting, hiding, and f(ornicating) Hamas, no matter how much damage Hamas cause in Gaza, because they hate the Israelis more.
The group of Black faith leaders “will be focusing attention” on how council members voted on the ban, Williams said. They’re also going to shift their focus to other issues of racial equity.
“That was merely just a step,” Williams said of the no-knock warrant ban. “That was not the journey. That was not the battle. That was merely a round in the fight for racial justice and equity.”
It is unsurprising that, having taken one tool away from law enforcement, they want to start hobbling the police in other areas.
In other, wholly unrelated news:
By Karla Ward | Juna 26, 2021 | 1:40 PM
Two teen boys were taken to a local hospital Friday night after a shooting downtown.
Lexington police were called to a report about an altercation with shots fired at High and Mill streets at 11:19 p.m. and found the teens shot, said police Lt. Daniel Truex. Their injuries were not thought to be life-threatening.
One of the victims approached officers at the Fifth Third Bank Pavilion and told them he had been shot, while the other injured teen was still at the scene, WKYT reported.
There’s a little more at the original.
According to the Lexington Shootings Investigations page, there have been 58 shootings in the city, though the last one recorded was on June 20th, so the page is a few days out of date. Of those 58 shootings, 42, or 72.41%, of the victims were black. Lexington’s population is 14.6% black. When the group of black faith leaders “shift their focus to other issues of racial equity,” perhaps a good place to start would be addressing why black people are being shot in such disproportionate numbers.
But there is one very unexpected quirk I saw, just before we left, that addresses a problem for today. Near a public cafeteria were the public restrooms. Entering the men’s room, I noticed the typical urinals along one wall, some in use, and a middle-aged female janitor cleaning, while the restroom was in use. Well, that’s pretty European, I thought.
