David McAtee was shot and killed by a police officer. Here's how to seek justice.
David McAtee was known in the Louisville community by two other names: YaYa- of his restaurant, YaYa's BBQ Shack- and "The Barbecue Man. "Just after midnight on June 1, after police and Kentucky National Guard officers opened fire on He was shot dead at the entrance.
"My son was a good son," Makati's mother, Odessa Riley, said Monday. 'I was the one who raised him, because I raised him to do the right thing.'
McAtee was cooking at a barbecue restaurant from the night of May 31 through the early hours of June 1. As the Washington Post and the Guardian reported, others sat, talked, and listened to music as they moved between Ya Ya's, the nearby Dino's Food Mart, and a gas station. Later, the Kentucky National Guard and Louisville Police Department arrived and dispersed those gathered after a 9 p.m. curfew was imposed.
"It was a normal day. Everyone was having a good time. Nobody was trying to get in trouble," Marvin McAtee, nephew of David McAtee, told The Guardian (open in new tab). 'It was curfew. I can't believe they're coming to shoot people because of curfew. ...... I can't stand it."
According to David James, president of the Louisville Metro Council, officers began shooting pepper balls into the crowd almost immediately. 'Four and a half or five seconds after they get out of their trucks, they're cleaning up that lot with pepperball guns,' James told the Washington Post. 'There's a curfew out there. There's a curfew out. That didn't happen."
Two pepper balls were fired at McAtee and his niece, with one grazing McAtee's head, the Los Angeles Times reported (opens in new tab). According to the Guardian, surveillance video shows McAtee raising his arm and possibly firing a warning shot. His nephew, Marvin McAtee, told the paper that his uncle never fired at police, that he was simply defending his restaurant, and that he did not see his uncle open fire.
In the video, McAtee then ran inside the restaurant and collapsed. According to a report in The Guardian, police said that after McAtee fired his gun, two officers and two National Guardsmen opened fire. Later, the Louisville Courier-Journal (opens in new tab) reported that the bullet to the chest that killed him was fired by a member of the National Guard, but did not specify which rifle fired the shot.
Police officers involved in the shooting, Katie Cruz and Austin Allen, did not activate their body cameras. Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer said, "This kind of systematic failure is unacceptable." [He] left a great legend. He was a good man," McCarty's mother, Odessa Riley, said of her son, insisting that he never fired a shot. He didn't hurt anyone," she said. He didn't hurt anyone. He hasn't done anything to anyone." [All I want for my son is peace and justice.
Click here to sign David McAtee's petition for justice (opens in new tab).
To donate to the fundraiser for McAtee's family, click here (opens in new tab).
To donate to the Louisville Community Bail Fund for protesters, click here (opens in new tab).
To donate to the National Bail Fund, click here (opens in new tab).
To donate to Black Lives Matter, click here (opens in new tab).
Sign Black Lives Matter's #DefundThePolice petition.
Click here to donate to Movement for Black Lives, a national coalition of black organizations (opens in new tab).
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