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“This is frustrating. This is very frustrating,” Humphrey said before adding: “This is every night.”
“This is not okay — this has to change,” the deputy police chief continued. “We can talk about the politics of guns, we can talk about mental health issues, we can talk about the breakdown of the family. It’s all of it.”
Just hours later, another person died in a separate shooting in the city, WHAS11 reported.
It’s been a heavy week in Louisville.
Monday a mass shooting killed five people. Since then seven others have died from gun violence.At the end of the Chickasaw shooting presser tonight I asked LMPD Deputy Chief Paul Humphrey what was on his heart. This is what he had to… pic.twitter.com/b3bfjjkFpp
— Alyssa Newton 📸 (@AlyssaKNewton) April 16, 2023
Sharing raw thoughts and drawing on personal experiences of gun violence have become a thread connecting police officers, first responders, politicians, journalists and others whose jobs intersect with the scenes of shootings. As mass killings continue devastating communities across the country, many like Humphrey have been compelled to add to the conversation, hoping their pleas might help address the problem of gun violence.
When a gunman opened fire at Old National Bank on April 10, killing five and injuring eight, it was the 16th shooting this year to leave at least four people dead, according to data from the Gun Violence Archive. On Saturday, a 17th occurred at a 16-year-old’s birthday party in Dadeville, Ala., where four people were killed and at least 28 injured.
That same night, someone fired shots at Louisville’s Chickasaw Park, killing two. Police have yet to make an arrest in the shooting, which is under investigation.
But throughout the week, Mayor Craig Greenberg (D) said in a statement, there had been “other shootings in between, resulting in even more lives lost.”
Greenberg also attended the news conference Saturday night.
“Please,” he pleaded. “Put your weapons down.”
The mayor added that he hoped the tragedies would give elected officials “even more resolve to work together to finally take action.”
Humphrey said addressing gun violence will require short- and long-term solutions — from policy change to better access to mental health treatment. He called on the people of Louisville to take steps to address “the problems that we have in our own community,” including families taking action when a loved one needs help.
“We all need to be there to take care of this problem,” Humphrey said. “There is no one solution.”
