LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WAVE) – Over the past 10 years, we’ve done dozens of undercover investigations into drug houses that were terrorizing neighborhoods and forcing businesses to flee. I showed my video to the police. And I exhausted them with a camera and full TV exposure. And even though the connection between drugs and the violence crisis is strong, often the response they get from the police is that they’re not worth their time because the justice system lets them get away with it time and time again.

“The reality is what’s going to happen when we arrest these individuals?” former LMPD Chief Erika Shields said in response to one of my reports. “They want to go right out the back door of the prison.”

So I decided to follow up on the police department’s claim. I went back to some of my drug house investigations where the police made arrests to investigate how the suspects fared when they got to court.

Let’s start with 2023. We received a complaint about “a group of guys selling drugs every day in front of 1026 South 4th…one with a handgun in his pocket with an extended clip. Kind of reckless.”

Sure enough, there they were, melees, and a guy pretending to shoot a gun while it looked like he had a gun under his shirt sticking up from his waist, and another guy was carrying a navy blue backpack.

LMPD responded, reporting they fled on foot and dropped a loaded Smith and Wesson 9mm. Officers caught the man with a navy blue backpack. An arrest citation said the backpack contained “several different narcotics, all packaged in small plastic bags.”

His name was Andrew Johnson.

Let’s see how he fared in our criminal justice system: Johnson was charged in the July 20 incident with aggravated possession of opiates, methamphetamine and marijuana, drug paraphernalia and fleeing from police. On August 3, his $1,000 bond was posted and Johnson was placed under house arrest. The court noted that he was “AWOL” a month later. On September 18, Johnson was charged with escape. He got the test for it a month later.

On charges of possession of opiates, cocaine, marijuana and fleeing from police, Johnson pleaded guilty and avoided prison time by being placed on probation.

How did the diversion go? Six months later, he was charged with assault and possession of a weapon by a convicted felon after a shooting on the same block: 1032 South 4th Street. The shooting victim said Johnson “looked at him embarrassed,” according to an arrest warrant. The victim said he heard three gunshots and saw Johnson run away. That’s when he says he realized he had been shot.

An LMPD officer said they were able to identify Johnson because he is known to hang out at the location regularly.

In 2022, they jumped the fence on the run from the most active drug house we’ve ever exposed. Up to 40 people an hour lined up outside, waiting to buy from a house at 26th and Madison, then lobbed crackling block pipes up and down and fired shots into the nearby building. Five days after that report aired, an LMPD special detail swooped in and arrested Tarron Moss right out front for drug trafficking and being a convicted felon with a gun. How did Moss fare in our criminal justice system? First, when Moss was arrested on a string of burglary charges in 2013, everything changed to diversion.

He messed up, so they canceled his diversion and gave him the original five years in prison to serve. A year later, he was already paroled. This was followed by possession of heroin, for which he received probation. Moss pleaded guilty to attempted escape, for which he received probation. Then a charge of possession of heroin, for which he received a day in jail. Then an indictment for convicted felon with a gun.

Three months later and five days after my drug report at 26th and Madison, Moss was arrested right there. Police noted he was already wanted. An arrest citation said he had two large bags of suspected heroin and a large amount of U.S. currency in his jacket pocket, along with two handguns in the passenger floor where he sat.

Moss was charged with aggravated trafficking in fentanyl, methamphetamine and possession of a handgun. His bail was set at $10,000 cash, but was posted by Project Bail. So, Moss is out of jail again.

At a scheduled appearance on Aug. 31, the clerk confirmed to WAVE News that Moss failed to appear, so the judge issued a warrant for his arrest.

“We’ve seen both sides for a long time,” defense attorney Leland Hulbert said.

Hulbert was the perfect person to talk to about this because after years as a prosecutor in cases like these in Louisville, he is now a defense attorney.

“The solution to the drug problem is so confused across the country,” Hulbert said. “They say 70 percent to 80 percent of your crimes are initiated because of drug crimes. I believe that. I think it’s true. It has been a problem for which there is no solution since I have been practicing. I don’t think you can arrest your way or put in jail to make things safer. I think it’s a popular solution. I don’t think it really works. But you have to draw the line somewhere.”

“What I see is the person I’ve pulled over 10, 15, 20 times and say get out of this lifestyle, and then all of a sudden I’m called to the scene where they’ve been shot and killed,” he said. said LMPD Chief Paul Humphrey at a recent community meeting. “I don’t see the overall effect of what mass incarceration is doing to black communities because I see the problem that’s in front of me.”

Louisville’s police chief is getting pressure from all angles on the issue.

“How do you navigate what you should do with the realities of what’s going on with these people?” I asked him after the meeting.

“I can 100% understand why they do it if they want to turn around and come right back, right?” he said. “But if they can interrupt that cycle of crime for just a few hours, that could be the opportunity that person had to kill somebody in the meantime, or that could be the weapon that they’re now going to have trouble getting back to commit that violent crime.”

“I don’t see it getting any better,” Hulbert said. “I see the laws are changing. I see drugs are changing. But the people who live in lower income neighborhoods that you’ve investigated and found come right back to sell, what else are they going to do? They have no work. You have no skills. They stand around. You receive an infraction. Nobody will hire them. So they have nothing to do but sit around and potentially sell drugs.”

Moss was eventually pushed out and received a five-year prison sentence. His “expected time to serve” was just over two years. He is already up for parole in six weeks.

I requested an interview with the Chief Circuit Judge of Jefferson County about this report. I was told that the canons of judicial ethics do not allow it.

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