On June 1, 2020, David McAtee, a 53-year-old African-American man, was fatally shot by the

Kentucky Army National Guard The Kentucky Army National Guard is a component of the United States Army and the United States National Guard. Nationwide, the Army National Guard comprises approximately one half of the US Army's available combat forces and approximately one t ...

Louisville Louisville ( , , ) is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Kentucky and the 28th most-populous city in the United States. Louisville is the historical seat and, since 2003, the nominal seat of Jefferson County, on the Indiana border. ...

during nationwide protests following the

murder of George Floyd On , George Floyd, a 46-year-old black man, was murdered in the U.S. city of Minneapolis by Derek Chauvin, a 44-year-old white police officer. Floyd had been arrested on suspicion of using a counterfeit $20 bill. Chauvin knelt on Floyd's n ...

and the

killing of Breonna Taylor Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old African-American woman, was fatally shot in her Louisville, Kentucky apartment on March 13, 2020, when at least seven police officers forced entry into the apartment as part of an investigation into drug dealing op ...

. The

Louisville Metro Police Department The Louisville Metro Police Department (LMPD) began operations on January 6, 2003, as part of the creation of the consolidated city-county government in Louisville, Kentucky, United States. It was formed by the merger of the Jefferson County Pol ...

(LMPD) and National Guard were in the area to enforce a curfew. According to officials, the police and soldiers were fired upon by McAtee, and two Louisville officers and two National Guardsmen returned fire. McAtee was killed by a shot fired from a guardsman. The body cams of the police involved were deactivated during the shooting, in violation of department policy. Hours later, police chief Steve Conrad was fired by Louisville Mayor

Greg Fischer Gregory Edward Fischer (born January 14, 1958) is an American businessman, entrepreneur and 2nd mayor of Louisville Metro. In 2019, he was elected vice president of the U.S. Conference of Mayors and served as its president in 2020. Fischer ra ...

Biography

David McAtee was the youngest child of Odessa Riley and James McAtee, and had eight siblings. He owned and operated YaYa's BBQ Shack, a popular

barbeque Barbecue or barbeque (informally BBQ in the UK, US, and Canada, barbie in Australia and braai in South Africa) is a term used with significant regional and national variations to describe various cooking methods that use live fire and smoke t ...

restaurant in Louisville's predominantly black West End neighborhood, a

food desert Food is any substance consumed by an organism for nutritional support. Food is usually of plant, animal, or fungal origin, and contains essential nutrients, such as carbohydrates, fats, proteins, vitamins, or minerals. The substance is ing ...

, and was a "beloved fixture" of his community. He had a reputation for generosity, including serving food at no cost in his restaurant to police officers and members of his community who were struggling financially. Having de-escalated potentially violent situations on multiple occasions, he was also known as a calming presence in his neighborhood. He adopted the name YaYa after becoming a

Rastafarian Rastafari, sometimes called Rastafarianism, is a religion that developed in Jamaica during the 1930s. It is classified as both a new religious movement and a social movement by scholars of religion. There is no central authority in control ...

around 2010.

Shooting

At the time of the shooting, a 9 p.m.

curfew A curfew is a government order specifying a time during which certain regulations apply. Typically, curfews order all people affected by them to ''not'' be in public places or on roads within a certain time frame, typically in the evening and ...

was in place due to

protests A protest (also called a demonstration, remonstration or remonstrance) is a public expression of objection, disapproval or dissent towards an idea or action, typically a political one. Protests can be thought of as acts of coopera ...

following the recent

and

by police officers. The LMPD and

National Guard National Guard is the name used by a wide variety of current and historical uniformed organizations in different countries. The original National Guard was formed during the French Revolution around a cadre of defectors from the French Guards. Nat ...

were attempting to disperse a crowd of people in and around the parking lot of Dino's Food Mart, a popular social gathering spot at a gas station across the street from McAtee's restaurant. Witnesses in the crowd said the gathering was independent of the protests and was instead part of a weekly neighborhood social occasion at which McAtee served food. They allege that soldiers and police, in their effort to enforce the curfew, had boxed the crowd into the area thus causing a panic, which resulted in people running towards the restaurant. According to an LMPD statement, someone in the crowd opened fire at the armed officers and soldiers, who returned fire. A bullet shot by a National Guard soldier struck McAtee in the chest, killing him at the scene at about 12:15 a.m. Following the shooting, hundreds of people stood near the restaurant, and McAtee's body remained lying at the scene for 12–14 hours while police investigated. After the coroner removed the body and the police departed, president of the Louisville affiliate of the

National Urban League The National Urban League, formerly known as the National League on Urban Conditions Among Negroes, is a nonpartisan historic civil rights organization based in New York City that advocates on behalf of economic and social justice for African Am ...

Sadiqa Reynolds recruited a local gospel singer to sing "

Amazing Grace "Amazing Grace" is a Christian hymn published in 1779 with words written in 1772 by English Anglican clergyman and poet John Newton (1725–1807). It is an immensely popular hymn, particularly in the United States, where it is used for both ...

Investigation

On June 1,

Governor A governor is an administrative leader and head of a polity or political region, ranking under the head of state and in some cases, such as governors-general, as the head of state's official representative. Depending on the type of political ...

Andy Beshear Andrew Graham Beshear (born November 29, 1977) is an American attorney and politician who has served as the 63rd governor of Kentucky since December 2019. A member of the Democratic Party, he is the son of the 61st governor of Kentucky, Steve B ...

ordered

Kentucky State Police The Kentucky State Police (KSP) is a department of the Kentucky Justice and Public Safety Cabinet, and the official State Police force of the Commonwealth of Kentucky, responsible for statewide law enforcement. The department was founded in 194 ...

to investigate the shooting via a joint effort with the

FBI The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic Intelligence agency, intelligence and Security agency, security service of the United States and its principal Federal law enforcement in the United States, federal law enforcement age ...

Louisville Field Office and the U.S. Attorney Office for the Western District of Kentucky. On June 2, acting LMPD police chief Schroeder said that security camera footage showed McAtee firing a gun as officers approached his business while clearing out a nearby parking lot. According to Schroeder, questions remained, "including why did he fire and where were police at the time he fired?" On June 4, videographic analysis by ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

visual investigations unit of surveillance and bystander videos from four separate angles reconstructed a synchronized chronology of the sequence of events leading to McAtee's death. This analysis concluded that police first fired at least two

pepper ball A pepper-spray projectile, also called a pepper-spray ball, pepper-ball, pepper bomb, or pepper-spray pellet is a Frangibility, frangible projectile containing a powdered chemical that irritates the eyes and nose in a manner similar to pepper spr ...

s from outside McAtee's restaurant toward his relatives and him, in violation of LMPD policy requiring pepper balls be shot at the ground in front of the crowd (rather than into the crowd) during crowd dispersal operations, and that "law enforcement officials shall avoid the use of force" when trying to disperse non-violent crowds. One shot hit and pierced a bottle on an outdoor table, knocking it to the ground, and the other struck the doorway, almost hitting McAtee's niece in the head. At the time, the pepper ball shots may not have been distinguishable from other ammunition. In response, McAtee grabbed his gun and appears to have fired. ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

'' wrote that the video shows that McAtee "raises his arm in the air", which is "a motion consistent with firing a

warning shot In military and police contexts, a warning shot is an intentionally harmless artillery shot or gunshot with intent to enact direct compliance and order to a hostile perpetrator or enemy forces. It is recognized as signalling intended confronta ...

". On June 9, the governor's office said that lab tests from the case concluded that McAtee was killed from a single gunshot by a National Guard soldier. In total, two officers and two guardsmen fired at least 19 shots in McAtee's direction. McAtee was determined to have fired twice with a 9 mm

pistol A pistol is a handgun, more specifically one with the chamber integral to its gun barrel, though in common usage the two terms are often used interchangeably. The English word was introduced in , when early handguns were produced in Europe, an ...

. According to officials, McAtee's shots prompted law enforcement's return fire, which killed him. The officers involved in the shooting were identified as Katie Crews and Austin Allen while the identities of the soldiers were not initially released. In May 2021, Commonwealth Attorney Tom Wine released more information about the shooting. LMPD officer Crews fired eight times, officer Allen fired once, National Guard soldier Andrew Kroszkewicz fired four times, and staff sergeant Matthew Roark fired six times.

Aftermath

Mayor In many countries, a mayor is the highest-ranking official in a municipal government such as that of a city or a town. Worldwide, there is a wide variance in local laws and customs regarding the powers and responsibilities of a mayor as well a ...

fired LMPD Chief Steve Conrad after learning that officers involved in the shooting of McAtee did not have their body cameras turned on. Deputy Chief Robert Schroeder was placed in charge of the department as the interim police chief and declared that the officers' decision to not use their body cameras was a "clear failure to (follow) our policy" and was "completely unacceptable." Many residents and protesters raised concerns about why so many officers and troops were at the location, as the most significant protest that night was roughly 20 blocks away. They have also stated that the group wasn't protesting but were, instead, customers of the store and BBQ cart. Others have raised questions about why

rubber bullet Rubber bullets (also called rubber baton rounds) are a type of baton round. Despite the name, rubber bullets typically have either a metal core with a rubber coating, or are a homogeneous admixture with rubber being a minority component. Altho ...

s had been used in the

Highlands Highland is a broad term for areas of higher elevation, such as a mountain range or mountainous plateau. Highland, Highlands, or The Highlands, may also refer to: Places Albania * Dukagjin Highlands Armenia * Armenian Highlands Australia *Sou ...

but real bullets in the West End. Crews became the subject of a professional standards investigation on June 2 after she posted a photo on social media of a protester offering her flowers during a protest on May 28. The photo depicts Crews standing in a police line with other officers, while a white female protester holds flowers near Crews' chest. Crews captioned the photo with "I hope the pepper balls that she got lit up with a little later on hurt" and claimed that the protester was attempting to elicit a reaction from her with taunts and finished the caption with "Come back and get ya some more old girl, I'll be on the line again tonight." In May 2021, the state of

Kentucky Kentucky ( , ), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States and one of the states of the Upper South. It borders Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north; West Virginia and Virginia to ...

announced that they would not file charges against the Louisville Metro Police Department officers and the Kentucky National Guard soldiers.

Reactions

Metro Council President David James described himself as a close personal friend of McAtee and described him as a good man who loved his neighborhood and city. McAtee's mother told reporters that he was known by the policemen and the community, and that he had fed all the policemen and would join them for discussions while they ate. After the state of Kentucky announced that there will not be charges filed against the officers and soldiers involved in the shooting, people in Louisville protested. Several demonstrators were arrested including McAtee's brother, who was charged with unlawful assembly and obstructing the highway.

References