Will Wright, a former Kentucky Kernel editor, Lexington Herald-Leader reporter, and now a reporting fellow for the New York Times, examines the challenges facing Louisville Metro Police Department interim chief, Yvette Gentry, including the decades long "culture of secrecy" at LMPD that has spawned public mistrust, in a story that appears in today's edition.

Wright focuses on a Nov. 22 fatal police shooting in the Portland neighborhood & delays in disclosure of body cam video which resulted from an agreement between LMPD and the Kentucky State Police under the still nonfinal terms of which KSP assumes responsibility for LMPD police shooting investigations.

These delays underscore the questionable decision to entrust the public's right to know to KSP that prompted my comment to Will in a recent conversation.

I also noted that there seems to be a move, at some level, to bring an end to KSP's defiance of the open records law. In November, KSP hired a seventeen year assistant attorney general and open records decision veteran, Michelle Harrison, as an "executive advisor" on open records matters.

It's a daunting challenge. My sincere hope is that Harrison will change KSP and that KSP will not change Harrison.

If she is successful, her efforts will redound to the benefit of LMPD as well as KSP — not to mention Chief Gentry's efforts at reform.