Diners at a restaurant in Bowling Green, Kentucky were caught off guard on Tuesday when a Republican group played footage of Breonna Taylor’s death, according to NBC News.
The footage was played by the Republican Women’s Club of South Central Kentucky at an event featuring John Mattingly, a former Louisville cop turn conservative pundit, who was one of the officers that raided Taylor’s home in March 2020.
The event took place on the balcony of Anna’s Greek Restaurant while it was still open to patrons who were given no warning that the event was taking place, NBC reports.
Innocent diners saw graphic scenes from the night Taylor was killed as lights went dark, and listen to audio from that night playing over the restaurant’s speaker system, witnesses say.
“We were no longer able to even hear people at our table and barely could see our food,” Cayce Johnson, a diner at the restaurant, said in a post on social media. Johnson also said the group showed footage of Taylor’s body.
“It is beyond reprehensible to subject anyone, let alone children and customers of African American descent, to such indecent exposure, graphic and upsetting images while they were attempting to enjoy their meal,” Ryan Dearbone, president of the Bowling Green-Warren County NAACP chapter, said in a statement. “Such disturbing occurrences must not be tolerated especially in places of public accommodation. At a minimum, these acts are devoid of humanity and violate the most fundamental principles of human decency.”
The Republican Women’s Club branch has since deleted their Facebook page.
[Image: Taylor Family attorney Sam Aguiar via AP]
