LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) – Louisville city leaders praised the former Atlanta police chief who has been hired to oversee their struggling department in the wake of Breonna Taylor’s death, but some critics questioned if she was the right choice after a rocky departure from her previous job.
Erika Shields was introduced this week after winning plaudits from Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer and a panel that unanimously selected her after a months-long search process. The panel included two Black city council members who have been instrumental in police reforms since Taylor was fatally shot by city officers in March.
One panelist, city council member Jessica Green, urged Kentucky’s largest city to give Shields “an opportunity to earn your trust.”
Asked Ricky L. Jones, chair of the Pan-African studies department at the University of Louisville: “Why would you make a hire in which you have to beg people to give her a chance?”
Shields stepped down from the top Atlanta post in June after the death of Rayshard Brooks, a Black man who was shot in the back by police in a restaurant parking lot after reports that he fell asleep at the wheel in a drive-thru lane. Shields remained with the Atlanta department in a lesser role.