This is how right wingers have fun
Body-camera footage and images of the night Breonna Taylor was killed in 2020 were shown in front of diners at a Kentucky restaurant this week during an event in which a GOP women’s group hosted one of the officers who fired into Taylor’s apartment, according to an NAACP chapter and accounts from patrons.
The Republican Women’s Club of South Central Kentucky held a dinner event Tuesday at Anna’s Greek Restaurant in Bowling Green, Ky., for Jonathan Mattingly, a former sergeant with the Louisville Metro Police Department who was among the officers who conducted the botched no-knock raid at Taylor’s Louisville apartment in search of her ex-boyfriend. Mattingly, who was one of the officers who fired into the 26-year-old Black woman’s apartment the night she died, was cleared of wrongdoing in an internal police investigation and retired in 2021 to become a conservative author and pundit.
Cayce Johnson, a Bowling Green resident who was dining at Anna’s on Tuesday, told The Washington Post that after Mattingly was introduced with “raucous applause” from the event’s attendees one floor above them, the former sergeant played a presentation featuring footage and images of the night Taylor was killed. After the lights were dimmed in the restaurant, diners who were not affiliated with the event could hear and see the graphic descriptions of Taylor’s killing, Johnson said.
“You could hear the gunshots in the footage,” Johnson, 34, said Saturday. “Our dinner was completely hijacked. We couldn’t hear ourselves at that point.” She added, “It makes me nauseous to think about now.”
Katelyn Jones, another Bowling Green resident dining at Anna’s, recounted her frustration in a Facebook post about how the group was featuring “one of the cops that killed Breonna Taylor there and had some kind of loud, tribute/rally to support him while we were eating.”
“It was extremely disrespectful disturbing and loud,” she wrote of the footage of the gunshots. “It was so loud and nobody wants to hear or see police footage, especially of the murder of an innocent Black woman while they are trying to enjoy their meal.”
Representatives with the Republican Women’s Club of South Central Kentucky did not immediately respond to The Post’s requests for comment early Saturday. The GOP group’s Facebook page was inaccessible Saturday morning. Before the event, the group said in a statement to Spectrum News in Louisville this week that it had invited Mattingly to speak at its event “to obtain a firsthand account” of what happened the night Taylor was killed.
“These events may be controversial; however, we believe Sgt. Mattingly has the right to share his experience,” the group said in a statement to Spectrum. “Other individuals with firsthand experience relating to this case are welcome to request an opportunity to speak to our organization as well.”
Mattingly, who did not immediately respond to The Post’s request for comment Saturday morning, wrote on Facebook that he enjoyed his time at the event, saying, “Food was amazing and staff was even better!” After Jones replied to his post by thanking him “for ruining my family’s and everyone else’s dinner,” Mattingly offered to pay for her family’s dinner and said he meant no harm in his presentation.
You have to be soulless and brain damaged to do something like this. “No harm?” The woman is dead and she was completely innocent. Does he enjoy reliving it with a bunch of trained seals celebrating her senseless murder?
This officer got off very lucky in not being held responsible for her death but the least we can expect is that he has regret for what happened and doesn’t go around celebrating it with what apparently are his fans — in a public place no less. It’s disgusting. But then, he’s now a “conservative pundit and author” so that’s just part of the job description.