Citizen Report No. 1632866322 - 336074570

An officer shoots at a reporter and cameraman for WAVE 3 News who are broadcasting live. According to the reporter, Kaitlin Rust, she was shot with pepper balls.

The Louisville Metro Police Department said in September 2020 that the officer had been “placed on paid administrative reassignment.” And that remained his status as of May 2021. In February 2021, local media identified the officer as Dusten Dean; Dean did not respond to a request for comment in March 2021. The LMPD had an open investigation into the incident as of May 27, 2021. The department had originally declined to name the officer involved, citing two Kentucky laws. “The premature disclosure of the requested records would harm the ongoing investigation and potential prosecution by identifying witnesses not otherwise known and tipping them off to the direction of the ongoing investigation, impact witness recollection of the incident, and taint the jury pool by permitting the ‘case’ be tried in the court of public opinion rather than in court with the benefit of procedural and evidentiary rules,” Sgt. Lamont Washington said in an email in July 2020. In a statement on the WAVE 3 website, the station’s general manager condemned the officer’s actions, writing, “There is simply no justification for the Louisville police to wantonly open fire, even with pepper balls, on any journalists under any circumstances.”