Cop In Breonna Taylor Case Defends Actions In Vile Email Sent To Colleagues

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Will there ever be justice for Breonna Taylor and peace for her family?

Six months after she was killed by members of the Louisville Metro Police Department, Jonathan Mattingly, one of the officers involved in her death, sent a six paragraph e-mail to over 1,000 of his colleagues around 2 a.m. on Tuesday, giving life to the exact reason why Black communities and communities of color yell “F–k the police!”

https://twitter.com/ByronTau/status/1308455104929038336?s=20

“I’m here to tell you I’m sorry you have to go through this. I’m sorry your families have to go through this,” he wrote, completely bypassing the FACT that a young woman’s life was taken. In fact, this “apology” should be addressed to Taylor’s family and loved ones.

The email was first reported by VICE journalist Roberto Ferdman, who screenshotted it and shared on his Twitter account. It is a bold and self-absorbed move by Mattingly who is one of six officers under internal investigation in the March 13 shooting.

“You DO NOT DESERVE to be in this position,” he wrote. “The position that allows thugs to get in your face and yell, curse and degrade you. Throw bricks bottles and urine on you and expect you to do nothing.”

Mattingly also forewarned that a decision from the grand jury could come down soon, while also condemning the city’s leadership for not siding with cops as unrest unveiled in the wake of Taylor’s death. He also makes a ridiculous case about “good versus evil,” astonishingly arguing that he was on the side of good.

Through his position, we can see that Mattingly represents the worst of us and has absolutely no place working as an officer. Mattingly, who was shot in the thigh by Taylor’s boyfriend and fully recovered, is having nothing more than a public temper tantrum because the evidence points to negligence as far as what transpired on the night of March 13 during the botched raid into Taylor’s apartment.

His argument leads back to the simple yet important message that our mothers, aunties and grandmothers taught us, “A hit dog will holler.”

An unarmed Black woman whose home never should’ve been raided was shot (five) times and died at the hands of Mattingly and his colleagues,” Sam Aguiar, a lawyer for Taylor’s family, told the Louisville Courier-Journal.

“Mattingly gets to go home to his family every day. Then they covered it up. So, respectfully, Mattingly’s definition of ‘moral’ and ‘ethical’ actions are insulting to anyone with common decency. His characterization of protesters as ‘thugs’ is reprehensible. This department has instilled a culture which needs to be changed.”

There remains thick tension and unrest after the city of Louisville declared a state of emergency earlier this week in preparation for the grand jury’s decision. Many on social media speculated that the outcome would be grim, and that another set of cops would face no repercussions over the violent taking of another Black life. All any of us can do is hope that maybe the grand jury will see Taylor as a human, as a woman who had her who life ahead of her until a series of decisions made by the LMPD ended her life.