Mayor-elect Craig Greenberg has picked Deputy Chief Jacquelyn Gwinn-Villaroel to be the interim chief of the Louisville Metro Police Department when he takes over in January.
Gwinn-Villaroel, who currently serves as second-in-command, will step into the top LMPD job after Chief Erika Shields resigns on Jan. 2, the day Greenberg takes office.
“Jackie has extensive experience in law enforcement leadership and reform,” Greenberg said in a release announcing the selection. “She is a strong, intelligent community leader and pastor. She is trustworthy and transparent, and Louisville is fortunate Jackie has agreed to serve as Interim Chief of Police.”
Gwinn-Villaroel spent 24 years with the Atlanta Police Department in a variety of roles including detective, lieutenant and captain. She was named commander of the department’s training academy in 2020 before joining LMPD in 2021
Gwinn-Villaroel is also an ordained pastor and founding member of Unstoppable Praise Ministries in Atlanta. She is married with a teenage son.
Greenberg announced Nov. 21 that Shields informed him of her plan to resign at the start of 2023, with Greenberg saying he would accept her resignation and pick an interim chief to lead LMPD during the early days of his administration.
Greenberg also said he would work with a search firm to find his permanent LMPD chief, seeking someone who “really values transparency,” “community policing” and “engagement” along with being “respected by our entire community and the LMPD officers.”
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Greenberg’s predecessor, Mayor Greg Fischer, who was limited by law from running for a fourth, four-year term, picked Shields to lead LMPD in January 2021 after firing former Chief Steve Conrad in June 2020 amid racial justice protests over the police killing of Breonna Taylor, David McAtee and other Black residents in Louisville and other U.S. cities.
Shields, 55, who previously led the Atlanta Police Department, was the fourth LMPD chief since 2020, with two different interim chiefs, Robert Schroeder and Yvette Gentry, serving between her and Conrad. She became Louisville’s second female and first openly gay police chief, with Fischer praising her at the time of her hire as an “experienced, progressive, reform-minded leader.”
The interim chief will take the helm as Louisville and LMPD continue to deal with triple-digit homicide and nonfatal shooting totals, long-running officer shortages and a pending U.S. Department of Justice investigation into its patterns and practices.
This story will update.
