>> I don't like.

I don't think it's in the best interest at heart.

I think the department's being highway for this.

>> Louisville police Chief Erika Shields says it wasn't her choice to lead the department after less than 2 years on the job, Lloyd was new mayor has other plans.

>> You know, coming up on one year anniversary, I think it's really going to really.

4 people.

>> Where some survivors of the western Kentucky tornado outbreak are finding mental health support.

>> So this about job training is about like gaining some necessary skills with fortunately the goal of going back into the workforce.

>> And how to organizations are coming together to help seniors get back to work.

>> Production of Kentucky Edition is made possible in part by the KET Endowment for Kentucky Productions.

Leonard Press Endowment for Public Affairs and the KET Millennium Fund.

♪ ♪ Good evening and welcome to Kentucky EDITION on this Thursday.

>> December I'm Renee Shaw.

Thank you for winding down your Thursday with us.

>> As we've told you, there's a big change coming to Louisville Metro Police.

Louisville Mayor elect Craig bring Greenberg is set to make a major personnel announcement tomorrow.

Just weeks after he announced the resignation of the city's police chief, Kentucky additions.

Kelsey Starks sat down with Chief Erika Shields who calls her ousting a political move.

>> Well, Chief Erika Shields was hired in Louisville as police chief during historic and rest in Louisville in the wake of the killing of Breonna in the middle of citywide historic protests and not to mention the middle of a national a worldwide pandemic.

Well, it's been less than 2 years since she was hired.

And now she is already leaving.

Chief Erika Shields is joining us now to talk a little bit about that.

Explain why.

Thanks so much for being here.

You are ready for a challenge when you took this job.

Yes, why are you leaving now?

>> So I yeah, this this job was it.

It was really important for me to come Breonna killing near very closely, similar one that we hadn't landed when I was there and about 2007.

And so I KET I KET I had a good idea.

But the fallout was going to be internally and then extremely community.

And so for me, it was I really believe in policing in the profession.

And I really wanted to be a part of get Louisville back on track I would like to stay longer.

Unfortunately, that was not afforded that opportunity.

But I am really, really appreciative to to Mayor Fischer for affording me the time here and for the department, the men and PD.

They've done an absolutely phenomenal job last couple years.

>> And I would I do want to talk about But I know there is some question about your resignation where you asked to resign or did you resign?

>> I mean, is presented to me that we're going.

We're doing a national search for getting into a different chief.

it's it was essentially you either resign or be fired and, you know, I don't I don't like how they've gone about this.

I don't think it's in the best interest of the department.

And I think the department's being highly politicized that being said it is the mayor's private.

It to choose police chief, which is why I'm not going to I'm not going to fight it.

But I also my number one interest is is that police department and it running well.

And so I am going to speak up because it's important that there be some continuity here.

Our this department risks really backsliding quickly.

You say it's a political move.

Explain what you mean by that.

Well, I thought, you police chief serve at the discretion of mayors and it's not uncommon for mayors to want someone they're comfortable with.

God forbid someone they can patrol.

And it's, you know, it's it is their prerogative.

But what you're doing is when you come in and what I will say is if we have been underperforming, I would completely understand.

But the successes that we have.

Accomplished and made in the last 2 years and the amount of momentum we have going forward, particularly in light of the fact that the DOJ is going to be dropping on us.

I what I imagine will be a scathing report.

This is not the time that LMPD should be having to experience yet another change.

Police chiefs and I came on.

I was the 4th chief.

In 7 months.

And now what you're going to have is you're going to have 3 chiefs in about the same amount of time again.

That lends itself to underperformance within the department, but it can also lead.

It can also lead to misconduct because when you don't have strong leadership and continuity of leadership.

Things, things for their heads.

So again, it's their prerogative.

But I also I also I don't like how this is unfolding.

You mentioned the Department of Justice that is coming out any day now for you said you expected to be skating.

Explain when you think is coming and what's going to come from the department from that?

>> I think that what they are, you know, they've gone back and looked back 5, 8, years and to see if there's patents, are there patterns of mix, misconduct, either patterns of use of force issues, sexual misconduct, discriminatory towards risk.

You're at risk population, homeless, substance of people struggling with substance abuse issues.

And when they show and so what they'll do is they will take.

All of these examples and showed no, we have a pattern here.

And I think that there has been a sufficient amount of these incidents publicly documented already that you can have a pretty good idea of where this is going.

And so then what will happen is the negotiations start and they'll go on about a year back and forth between the DOJ and the city of Louisville.

What will the city commit to?

What is the DOJ?

What are they requiring?

I mean, it's and it's truly an arbitration where you don't have the upper hand big should be clear because you're already disadvantage because you have these wrongdoings.

But you also as a city have to ensure that you don't agree to do things that you just simply cannot do.

Maybe state law prohibits it.

Maybe you just don't have the technological capacity to do it.

You have to have to navigate that.

And the risk is if you don't, if you don't understand what's your bargaining for and what the negotiation process and how to do it said that at the end of the day, the department is better.

You risk becoming Oakland.

Oakland has been under a consent decree for 20 years.

I will submit to that any any corrective action that still is not completed.

The end of 20 years was was was not well done.

You really have to structure in a manner.

This is no we we agree to this and this is where we're going.

This is how we're going to fix this agency.

The good news is we have a lot of of measures on underfoot already.

That will hit with the DOJ is going to be looking for.

And so we're not starting from ground 0.

We've been spending the last year really preparing ourselves, but we see and then looking at other cities, they're at the sentry and saying what have they had been required to do so that we can get ahead of this.

>> What's that going to be like?

Something like that coming out with a brand new police chief and a brand new mayor.

>> It, you know, the risk that you're on is that they they won't fully understand what they're they're committing the city to end in sight showed you indicated with the Oakland.

The issue is if you don't, I understand it.

You you risk.

Leaving behind a trail, a real, a real mess for others to clean up when you're long gone.

We reached out to Mayor elect Craig Greenberg who said in a statement will be announcing a new interim chief very soon.

>> Look forward to working with the new chief and everyone that LMPD to make our city safer and move forward in a new direction.

I respect and admire our hard-working LMPD officers who share our city's common goals of reducing violent crime, improving public safety and engaging with the community and quote, we do expect that announcement tomorrow and we'll have that.

And the second part of Chief Shields interview tomorrow night on Kentucky EDITION.

More.

All eyes are headed to Lexington to fight crime.

The Urban County Council approved a plan to put up 75 more flock cameras.

That's in addition to the 25 already in place.

The goal is to help police solve crimes, not heavy traffic violations.

Flock cameras, take pictures of license plates, seen at crime scenes and match them to license plates from national crime database is there's been criticism of these cameras earlier this year.

Lexington Council member James Brown was concerned the cameras might be disproportionately placed in minority neighborhoods.

Some people have complained that their invasion of privacy, Mayor Linda Gorton of Lexington, says when people are in public place using public infrastructure, the city has every right to have cameras there.

Louisville, Georgetown, Elizabeth Town in Hopkinsville also have flock cameras.

They've been credited with leading to arrests for car thefts.

The state is making another change to Kentucky's juvenile justice system under the current law.

All male juveniles are kept together in the same facilities regardless of the severity of their crimes.

Governor Andy Beshear's Beshear says there are times when someone accused of murder is in the same facility.

Someone accused of truancy are skipping school.

He says that's dangerous for juveniles and the people who work in the facilities.

>> So beginning soon, the Department of Juvenile Justice will operate a new classification system, which will house male juveniles aged 14 and older my mental offense.

Instead of just the closest facility.

We are working now to identify a number of higher security facilities that are going to males to men charged with more violent or more serious crimes.

Those charged with lower-level offenses.

We'll be in a lower security.

The facility.

>> Last Thursday, the governor announced male and female juveniles would be separated.

Also for safety reasons with the young women sent to a female only facility in Campbell County.

Governor Beshear says caring is the key to connecting with rule voters in Kentucky.

The Associated Press interviewed Governor Beshear yesterday just days after he officially filed to run for reelection.

The governor won in 2019 by caring Kentucky cities and doing well in many suburban areas.

But Republicans now dominate rule areas and small towns.

The governor told the AP, quote, When we think about how do we communicate with our rule families.

The first thing is to care about them and to show them that you care about them and to earn their trust that you do truly care about them, unquote.

Governor Beshear said Democrats need to talk about good paying jobs, access to quality health care and good public schools in order to appeal to rural voters.

Kentucky is getting some help to expand high-speed Internet.

The state says it's received and Internet for all grant a 5.8 million dollars.

Money is from the infrastructure bill passed by Congress last year.

Among other things, the grant will help identify areas lacking reliable high-speed Internet service.

The U.S. house today passed the defense of marriage bill, a bill that requires each state to legally recognize marriages from other states.

The bill is a response to concerns about keeping same sex marriage and interracial marriage is legal.

The vote was 2.58 to one.

69 with 39 Republicans voting for it.

All of Kentucky's Republican representatives voted no.

The bill has already passed the U.S. Senate.

61 to 36 with Senators Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul voting.

No.

Congressman Andy Barr of the 6 district put out a statement about his no vote.

He says the bill is quote about expressing intolerance for people of faith who have a sincerely held religious belief in favor of traditional marriage is also about impermissibly and unconstitutionally compelling Americans to violate their conscience because I believe tolerance should go in all directions.

And because I take seriously the First Amendment's protection of the right of Americans to freely exercise their fate.

I voted against this legislation, end quote.

The Family Foundation, a conservative group put out a similar statement about the passage of the Defense of Marriage Act.

The statement says, quote, Congress has profoundly disrespected marriage and trampled on America's first freedom, the right of religious liberty.

The bill is a cloud that will be used to target people of faith and Christian organizations, most especially faith-based adoption and foster care agencies, end quote.

We're now 2 days from the one-year anniversary of the western Kentucky tornadoes that killed 81 people on the U.S. Senate floor today.

Senator Mitch McConnell talked about what he saw then and what he's saying now.

>> A few days after the storm of this is some of the hardest hit towns.

I saw the pictures of the damage in the newspaper and on television.

Good even began.

Pick up to the local devastation.

In places like Mayfield, Campbellsville.

Green and Dawson Springs.

Homes literally ripped off their foundations.

Crews scattered like twigs.

Whole neighborhoods gone.

International.

The pain is still fresh.

But as I was saying and multiple return business.

Slowly but surely Western Kentucky.

He's coming back.

>> One year after the December 10th Tornado, Dawson Springs is looking not only to the past, but to the future.

Michael Duncan of the Hopkins County long-term disaster Recovery Group says it's a rebirth for the town as they work to rebuild.

What was lost.

♪ >> He fears to rest all that.

But I think we made great progress in that time.

Fortune a long term recovery.

The center of the samples, that tornado and it was basically a at least 3 months clean that right now where we're focused on getting started and started to put people back in the house is we've had tremendous number of groups come in to help.

>> Clean up and rebuild.

And that has 10 houses that they that foundation started and they've committed over the next 3 years of Bill 50 houses loop.

They've got about 7 houses, nothing going in Hopkins County.

And then we've got to Catholic Charities is committed.

They're going to build about 4, 5 houses.

So we've a lot of times to do the next 3 years.

57% of the doses renters.

So property would destroy lives or improper.

>> A lot of men are living with family.

You know, that's one of our long-term goals is to get people back in the housing, get people back into some doubt, normalcy.

We've got several long tearful mask and there we still have several.

>> Local volunteers, most of that sort of slow down for the holiday season after January.

Pick back up.

Where are you land a spring break.

Time for a lot of college students coming in to help with the habitat houses.

Different things are several of those groups that were land and the most time you're looking for skilled, long tears.

>> Somebody can come in second, you know, help build a house now has got a piece of lumber and a lot of major, you know, can and do those kind of things.

You get those kind of people that it can.

It can you know, they put houses up quickly.

The jury mirth in some ways we lost people tragically.

>> And we so buildings.

You know, we're going to build build it back better.

It's just long-term recovery.

It's to punish not months, but years.

You know, this is just beginning.

You know, it's it's many years, but still just beginning, its were still looking to move not given up on anybody.

>> Duncan says that at the end of October, 16 home permits have been given out with many of them and Dawson Springs.

Meeting.

The basic needs of survivors was the immediate goal of recovery groups following the tornado outbreak.

But there is a growing emphasis on meeting the mental health needs of survivors, particularly as the one-year anniversary of the tornado outbreak approaches in Mayfield, a support group has been set up for tornado survivors who are dealing with trauma.

>> What I saw coming, you know, coming into this community, people were in.

Just You think if I can get in my home, if I can get a place to stay, if I can get my car, if I can get back to work, it's going to be all that people are finding.

That's not the case.

We try to find avenues to let people know there is a place that you can come a support group.

A place that you can just.

Let go.

Whatever we have different people coming in.

But I see a lot have been candle factory workers.

One of the main things I've seen is people who lose family members that lost friends.

Why not me?

How come I survived?

How how come I made it through this?

My best friend.

A family member.

It's not fair that I I get to be on.

Get get to continue on.

That's that's one of the one.

The biggest things as we begin to talk to people.

You know, the issue was every time the weatherman say there's going to be another storm.

People were in panic mode where people are afraid to say I have because it's you know, they want to be disrespectful 2 adult.

A person's been in combat.

But as they begin to look at it, a major, major trauma, something that people never experience in the live.

And not and they're afraid that it might happen again.

They're not guarantee that it that won't happen again.

So they're traumatized somebody who has PTSD.

Doesn't like to be labeled as PTSD.

There's a lot more in society says the focus on that.

It's okay not to be okay.

It's getting better.

Trauma tends to shine a lot on that again.

It's it's okay not to be okay that there are resources.

>> Jones says they partnered with Project Recovery, a regional collaborative of counselors to provide one-on-one support for survivors who feel they need it.

♪ >> During the COVID-19 pandemic, millions of older Americans opted for early retirement, but a growing number of them are on retiring and looking to programs like the senior community service Employment program or seize up to help prepare them to re-enter the job market successfully.

>> See step is an older worker program that is funded by the Department of Labor.

Goodwill is our 3rd party agent that administers the program here in Kentucky.

We cover 51 counties.

We serve individuals who are 55 years old and older who fall within a certain income bracket.

We offer them on the job training so that they can either repurpose their skills or fun new skills to re-enter the workforce.

A lot of the individuals have realized the higher cost that inflation put on they needed to supplement their income.

And so even if they were in 2 retirements or a lost job just because of COVID and didn't have a plan for retirement.

They were looking for additional income to come into their household.

>> So currently, we have probably over 200 people employed through the sea said program.

Our goal is to serve over 400 people a year.

So it is about job training is about like gaining some necessary skills.

But fortunately, the goal of going back into the workforce.

>> I had never tried.

I just think it has to own about how my daughter Miles want totally about sunset program.

We'll know there.

But if I've known about this 7 years ago, out >> Not only there.

>> Workplace skills, but their social skills.

And that's a big part of I think what the the seniors get from being back out into the workforce is that social interaction?

>> You know, just sitting around you know, really was sitting around the house all time and one much time.

Do you just get caught out of it?

>> It really help you.

And that's what happened with this.

>> One of the wonderful things for see SEP since it became a goodwill partner is that not only do we offer our folks the on the job training in the computer and digital literacy, we get piggyback on all the other services that Goodwill offers.

One it looks like you know these folks, another chance, if they've been, you know, out of the workforce and it creates, you know, more benefits for those people.

you know, too, contribute back to society.

They usually have lots of, you know, a but he left.

So we want to help people, you know, overcome whatever obstacles and challenges that they're experiencing.

You know, and achieve for police self-sufficiency.

So that's our goal is for people to be contributing members of society.

>> To find out more about how to get involved with the Sea set program either as a participant or as a host agency go to the Goodwill Industries website.

♪ >> Bowling Green has a diverse population home to refugees and immigrants from 30 countries around the world.

Warren County Public Schools created GEO International High School in 2016 for students who are new to the U.S. their classes are tailored around learning English and other subjects that will help them thrive in America.

From Myanmar.

>> When we arrived there, I was 10.

We're right here on October 15, 2015.

>> We have students who come from very different backgrounds and that come from really hard times.

So this school we try to be as welcoming to them as possible and we want them to coming to the school and still KET their cultures.

When you get to know that could put it well, that you see the an opportunity.

She got a and you feel more comfortable.

You feel you feel like you want getting the United States.

I like the teachers are very like generous.

And they're always here to help us.

>> And the fact that they take their time out of their personal time to like answer a question.

We have an aunt.

>> The way our school is set up is to operate like traditional for your high school.

So all of our students are coming in with the intent to graduate.

We have students from 23 countries and there are 26 languages represented.

>> He did.

You know that you're not being on the Hispanic like I know there are a lot about.

But, you know, you know that you had a small group living in, you can buy lingering.

So you get to know many other people here and then you get to learn about other people with coach or a nation.

Now that he's everybody's excited.

>> Most recently, the biggest push is coming from Afghanistan and we have a lot relocated Afghan refugees.

That's the most recent one.

We still have a lot from Somalia we have a African students that are coming in.

But right we're seeing a lot Central America >> we enjoy seeing the growth of the English language skills, but also the growth of the social skills and their are learning all the high school tonight.

You know the pictures pretty well.

And they know you I can to see these kids grow from walking in introducing in their first day in, they can barely even say their name to now they're taking their credit college >> We learn basic subject every day.

But since I'm a sinner non taking college classes and dual credit classes in the UK and skies to to sit.

>> When they leave the school, they are ready find a job or enroll in college.

Several of them have college hours already under their belts whenever they >> right now, I was thinking and 2 nearing or architecture.

>> And I made a few of you to mention the word really.

>> They came to the United for better education and so on physically getting to see those kids live out their American >> Really cold students must apply for the school.

It's for those who have been in the U.S. last.

Then 5 years, there are 155 students currently enrolled and has 15 faculty and staff members.

♪ Tomorrow on Kentucky EDITION, part 2 of our interview with Louisville Police Chief Erika Shields.

Our experts talk about the weekend, Kentucky politics and Louisville gets a new football coach.

And if you want to tour Bowling Green while letting someone else drive just hop on the trolley, we'll take you for a ride Friday on Kentucky edition.

And that's, of course, at 6.30, Eastern 5.30, central where we inform connect and inspire subscribe to our weekly Kentucky Edition email newsletter and watch full episodes.

>> At KET Dot Org.

You can also find Kentucky Edition on the PBS video app on your mobile device and smart TV.

Thank you so much for watching.

And I'll see you right back here tomorrow night.

Take good care.

♪