Ky. police training quotedHitler, urged ‘ruthless’ violence

A slideshow once shown to cadets training to join the Kentucky State Police includes quotations attributed to Hitler and Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee, says troopers should be warriors who “always fight to the death” and encourages each trooper in training to be a “ruthless killer.”

The slideshow, which came to light Friday in a report from a high school newspaper, brought harsh condemnation from politicians, Jewish groups and Kentucky residents, but not fromthe Kentucky State Police department itself, which said only that the training materialswere old.

Morgan Hall, a spokeswoman for the Kentucky Justice and Public Safety Cabinet, which oversees the State Police, said that the slideshow was “removed” in 2013 and was no longer in use but declined to answer a list of questions, including queries about how long the material was used and how many cadets had seen the training.

Hall said in a statement that it was “unacceptable” that such material had ever been included in law enforcement training. “Our administration does not condone the use of this material,” she said. She added that the cabinet agency ”began an internal review.”

“The very first essential for success is a perpetually constant and regular employment of violence,” reads one quotation attributed to Hitler, who is quoted more than anyone in the training document. Some of the statements attributed to Hitler link to awebsite providing biographical information about him and listing books by and about him.

The slide show was obtained by a lawyer who is suing a Kentucky State Police trooper who shot and killed Bradley J. Grant, 37, in 2018. David Ward, the lawyer, said he had received a copy of the slide showafter filing a public records request for documents that the trooper had seen when he was going through training at the academy in 2013.

The slideshow was first reported by the Manual Redeye, a student newspaper at duPont Manual High School in Louisville, in an article written by the 16year-old and 14-year-old sons of another lawyer involved in a lawsuit against another state trooper.

“This is absolutely unacceptable,” Gov. Andy Beshear of Kentucky, a Democrat, said in a statement. “We will collect all the facts and take immediate corrective action.”