NewsNational

Actions

1st Black woman named to full-time role as police chief of embattled force in Louisville, Kentucky

Jacquelyn Gwinn-Villaroel
Posted
and last updated

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — Louisville, Kentucky interim police chief Jacquelyn Gwinn-Villaroel has been named the city’s new chief.

She is the first Black woman to lead the embattled department in a full-time role.

The city has gone through several chiefs and interim chiefs since the fatal police shooting of a Black woman, Breonna Taylor, during a raid in 2020.

Gwinn-Villaroel inherits a department that is under a consent decree with the U.S. Department of Justice after a yearslong investigation that alleged racial bias and a pattern of excessive force.

Greenberg says the new chief also showed leadership during a mass shooting at a downtown bank in April.