Proactive police activity in Louisville plummeted by more than half in the two weeks surrounding the police chief’s announcement of planned traffic stop policy changes, department data shows.

The department tracks “self-initiated” activity that’s not the result of a dispatch, such as traffic stops, business checks, pedestrian stops and checking on stationary occupied vehicles. Its weekly Compstat reports show that such activity plunged abruptly after the department’s new traffic stop policy was first reported on May 9.

The week before the policy changes were unveiled, April 28 to May 4, self-initiated activities totaled 2,650, according to the department's figures.

The week after they were announced, May 12-18, there were 1,293 — a drop of more than 50% over two weeks.

Background:LMPD handcuffed a black teen for a wide turn, said 'quit with the attitude'

Louisville Metro Police spokeswoman Jessie Halladay said Wednesday the department had noticed the drop in self-initiated activity over the past few weeks, which leadership had "anticipated on some level."

There's always uncertainty when policies change, she said, and such drops are normal after major changes or national events like the uproar in Ferguson, Missouri.

Still, Halladay said, it is "obviously concerning when we see a significant drop, because we know that officers being out there and being proactive does have an impact on crime and the way people feel about the safety of their neighborhoods."

Historically, about 40% of self-initiated activity is traffic stops, Halladay said.

The department doesn't have specific numbers on where the drop in such activity is coming from, but she said leadership believes "the bulk" of it is "related to the traffic stop policy."

LMPD Chief Steve Conrad said at a Wednesday afternoon committee meeting that traffic stops had also dropped. In the three weeks after the announcement, he said there were 2,327 traffic stops, as compared with 4,143 in the three weeks prior. That information is not included in Compstat reports.

Police leaders have said the changes weren't the result of any one traffic stop, but they were unveiled about a month after furor broke out around the viral traffic stop of 18-year-old Tae-Ahn Lea, who was pulled from his car, frisked and handcuffed after allegedly making a "wide turn."

The tweaked policy says removing motorists from cars, patting them down and handcuffing them should not be employed as a "matter of routine" and should be done only based on factors that include the motorist's behavior, size and history of assaulting officers or fleeing.

Officers will continue to make traffic stops in high-crime areas, Conrad has said, but they must be based on a "reasonable" belief the motorist has committed or is about to commit a crime.

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Proactive policing, according to local police union president Nicolai Jilek, is an important part of the job because it strives to prevent a crime from occurring or continuing. Whereas reactive policing often responds after a crime has occurred, proactive policing at its best recognizes signs ahead of time or responds in the moment.

But officers, he said, have been uncertain about where the lines in the new policy are drawn and are unclear on what the public and the police leadership expect of them.

“If the lines of what is appropriate and what is not appropriate, if they aren’t clear, and the repercussions for crossing those lines are discipline up to termination, then if it’s not something that’s absolutely necessary to do … I would expect that many officers are going to err on the side of caution and not engage,” Jilek said.

“They’re making, especially young officers who are honing (their) instincts, they’re going to make them very apprehensive to develop those instincts and to engage people,” he added.

Last week, Conrad said that it was "in the best interest of everyone" to make significant changes to the department's traffic stop policy, but that it "hasn't been well-received internally."

"That change was the right thing to do, and I'll stand by that decision," Conrad told budget committee members, "but I will tell you I made the job significantly harder for the men and women that are out there trying to do it day in and day out."

Related:LMPD's new traffic stop rules will endanger lives, FOP leader says

Jilek denounced the tweaks in mid-May, saying they would endanger officers and keep them from catching criminals.

On Wednesday, he told the Courier Journal he told his members to “be careful,” follow the policy exactly and ask questions if parts are unclear.

The department expects self-initiated activity to rise slowly as more officers are trained on the policy, under the quick two-month training schedule instituted ahead of it going into effect on July 1.

Halladay said Wednesday that the policy isn't meant to stop officers from doing their jobs "safely and effectively" but is meant to "really get them to articulate and be clear for the reasons that they're stopping people."

"We knew that there would be these questions, and we felt we owed it to the officers to give them the training they need so they can follow this policy and feel confident in the policy," she said. "... We certainly expect our officers to be out there and be proactive."

In March, officers across divisions reported an average of 2,646 self-initiated activities each week, followed by 2,707 in the four weeks including the bulk of April.

But in May, that number dropped to 1,908.

From April:Council members slam traffic stops as LMPD chief defends their use

In the First Division, which encompasses downtown and its adjacent neighborhoods of Portland, Russell and Phoenix Hill, self-initiated activity went from 466 the week before the policy changes were announced, to 309 during the week of May 9, to 210 the week after Conrad's announcement — a drop of nearly 55%.

In the Second Division, comprised primarily of western Louisville neighborhoods, self-initiated activity went from 291 the week of April 28 to May 4 to 139 the week of May 12-18. That drop totals 52.23%.

Each division except for two experienced drops of more than 50%.

The Ninth Mobile Division, which was responsible for Lea's traffic stop, doesn't report self-initiated activities separately in the Compstat Data report. The bulk of its activity would likely fall into that category, as its officers aren't assigned to a geographic area like other divisions.

Figures rebounded slightly between May 19-25, the most recent available, but not to levels seen before the policy change.

Whereas April's average weekly self-initiated activity was around 2,700, the week of May 19 reported 1,561, up from 1,293 the week prior.

Conrad previously defended the strategy of using traffic stops and other "tools" to reduce violent crime and Louisville's scourge of homicides. And, he said, the department's officers don't pull motorists over on pretexts or have a policy of "aggressive" policing in west Louisville.

Less than a month later, in announcing the changes, Conrad said new policies "aim to strike a balance between the concerns of the community and the need for us to conduct traffic stops for both safety and investigative reasons."

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But Jilek said the police union’s members are waiting for “clear guidance and clear expectations” from the public, Metro Government and police leadership both on traffic stops and on what they expect from the police.

“We don’t really know what the expectations are,” Jilek said. “On one hand, we feel compelled and we feel like the community wants us. But then at the same time, there’s a big divide and gap and understanding in what policing is, how it works, the real-life policing.”

While many on Metro Council's public safety committee applauded the department for making changes, they were criticized by some, including Councilman Mark Fox, D-13th District, a former police major and district commander who retired three years ago after 34 years on the force.

"We're in a period of time in our community, unfortunately, where we need our police officers doing more, not less," Fox said.

"... We would never ask our fire department, as the fire gets bigger and hotter and rages on, to put less water on it," he added.

Darcy Costello: 502-582-4834; dcostello@courier-journal.com; Twitter: @dctello. Support strong local journalism by subscribing today: courier-journal.com/darcyc.