LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WAVE) – Over the past decade, I have led dozens of undercover investigations into drug houses that terrorized neighborhoods and forced businesses to flee. I showed my video to the police. And I bankrupted them myself with a camera and full TV exposure. And even though the link between drugs and the violence crisis is strong, the police often tell me it’s not worth it because the justice system keeps letting them get away with it.

“Realistically, what is going to happen when we arrest these individuals? said former LMPD Chief Erika Shields in response to one of my reports. “They’re going straight out the back door of the prison.”

So I decided to follow up on the police’s assertion. I looked back on a few of my drug house investigations where the police made arrests to investigate how the suspects were faring when they arrived at the courthouse.

Let’s start with 2023. I received a complaint about “a group of guys selling drugs every day in front of 1026 South 4th…one with a gun in his pocket with an extended magazine.” A little cheeky.

Sure enough, there they were, hand-to-hand exchanges, and one guy was pretending he was shooting a gun when it looked like he had a gun under his shirt sticking out of his waistband, and another guy was wearing a navy blue fanny pack.

LMPD responded, reporting that they fled on foot and threw a loaded Smith and Wesson 9 millimeter. Police arrested the man who was carrying a navy blue fanny pack. A subpoena said the fanny pack contained “several different narcotics, all packaged in small plastic bags.”

His name was Anderyou Johnson.

Let’s see how he fared in our criminal justice system: Johnson was charged in this July 20 incident with increased possession of opiates, methamphetamine and marijuana, drug paraphernalia and fleeing the police. On August 3, his $1,000 bail was posted and Johnson was placed on home detention. The court noted that he went “AWOL” a month later. On September 18, Johnson was charged with escape. He got probation for that a month later.

As for possessing opiates, cocaine, marijuana and fleeing police, Johnson pleaded guilty and avoided prison by being placed on diversion.

How did the diversion take place? Six months later, he was charged with assault and possession of a handgun by a convicted felon after a shooting on the same block: 1032 South 4th Street. The shooting victim said Johnson was “looking at him awkwardly,” according to a court summons. The victim said he heard three gunshots and saw Johnson running away. That’s when he said he realized he had been shot.

An LMPD officer said he was able to identify Johnson because he is known to hang around the scene regularly.

In 2022, they were breaking through the barrier, fleeing the most active drug trafficking house I have ever exposed. Up to 40 people an hour formed lines outside waiting to buy at a house at 26th and Madison, then lit the crackling crack pipes all over the block and fired shots. fire in the neighboring skyscraper. Five days after this report aired, a special LMPD trooper rushed out and arrested Tarron Moss immediately on drug charges and possession of a firearm. How has Moss fared in our criminal justice system? First, when Moss was arrested on a series of burglary charges in 2013, everything was changed down to the hijacking.

He made a mistake, so they overturned his diversion and gave him his original five years in prison. A year later, he was already released on parole. This was followed by heroin possession, 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 prison. Then an indictment for a convicted felon with a gun.

Three months later and five days after my report to a drug house at 26th and Madison, Moss was arrested on the scene. The police found that he was already wanted. A summons said he had two large bags of suspected heroin and a large amount of U.S. currency in his jacket pocket, as well as two handguns in the passenger footwell where he was seated.

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

During a court appearance scheduled for Aug. 31, the clerk’s office confirmed to WAVE News that Moss failed to appear, so the judge issued a warrant for his arrest.

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

Hulbert was the perfect person to talk to about it 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 very perplexing throughout the country,” Hulbert said. “It is said that 70 to 80% of your crimes are due to drug offenses. I believe that. I think it’s true. This is a problem for which there has been no solution since I have been practicing. I don’t think you can stop your way or put in jail to make things safer. I think this is a popular solution. I don’t think this really works. But you have to draw a line somewhere.

“What I see is the person I’ve arrested 10, 15, 20 times, and I tell them to leave that lifestyle, and then all of a sudden I’m called to the scene where they was shot and killed,” LMPD Chief Paul Humphrey said at a recent community meeting “I don’t see the overall effect of mass incarceration on black communities because I see the problem. who is before me.”

Louisville’s police chief is under pressure from all sides on this issue.

“How do you deal with what you’re supposed to do with the realities of what ends up happening to these people? » I asked him after the meeting.

“I 100% understand why do this if they want to turn around and come back immediately, right?” he said. “But if I can interrupt this cycle of crime for just a few hours, it could be the opportunity for that person to kill someone in the meantime or it could be the weapon that they now have difficulty getting back so they can get her back. commit this violent crime.

“I don’t really see any improvement,” Hulbert said. “I see the laws changing. I see the medications changing. But the people who live in low-income neighborhoods that you found and investigated immediately start selling again, what else are they going to do? They don’t have a job. I don’t have any skills. They hang around. Get a crime. Nobody is going to hire them. So they have nothing to do but sit around and potentially sell drugs. »

Moss was eventually arrested and sentenced to five years. His “expected time to serve” was just over two years. He will already be out on parole in six weeks.

I have requested an interview with the Chief Judge of Jefferson County regarding this report. I was told that the canons of judicial ethics did not allow it.

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