One of the Louisville, Kentucky, police officers involved in the deadly no-knock raid on Breonna Taylor’s apartment in March 2020 inked a book deal — only for the distributor to pull out after backlash.
Sgt. Jonathan Mattingly is set to take readers deep inside the high-profile case in his forthcoming book “The Fight For Truth: The Inside Story Behind the Breonna Taylor Tragedy,” edited and published by Tennessee-based Post Hill Press, The Huffington Post reported.
Mattingly said in an email to the Courier-Journal that he was still “in the process of writing” the book. Post Hill Press Senior Publicist Devon Brown said it would be published by the fall through distributor by Simon & Schuster.
News of Mattingly’s book was met with criticism on social media, with Simon & Schuster catching heat for distributing the book.
Read More: Kentucky limits no-knock warrants after Breonna Taylor death
“The editorial and publishing decision of our distribution clients are theirs and theirs alone, and are made independently of Simon & Schuster,” the publishing house told The Wrap after receiving backlash over the title. “Per our agreements with them we are unable to pick and choose which titles on their list to distribute.”
After relentless calls by Twitter users to drop Mattingly’s book and part ways with Post Hill Press, Simon & Schuster confirmed in a statement that “We have subsequently decided not to be involved in the distribution of this book.”
Mattingly, Officer Myles Cosgrove and Detective Brett Hankison served a no-knock warrant at Taylor’s apartment in connection with a narcotics investigation into her ex-boyfriend, Jamarcus Glover. Appearing on Good Morning America last October, he described how they approached the apartment and that Taylor and her boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, knew that it was the police knocking on their door. He also maintained that officers thought the woman was home alone, theGRIO previously reported.
Mattingly was shot by Walker when he and two other Louisville Metro Police officers broke down the door. Walker claims the trio did not identify themselves as police and maintains he was defending his home when he wounded Mattingly in the leg. Mattingly has filed a civil suit against Walker.
Walker, who was initially charged for shooting Mattingly, has filed a lawsuit against the Louisville Metropolitan Police Department, in which it is alleged officers “threatened Kenny’s life, illegally detained Kenny, interrogated him under false pretenses, ignored his account as corroborated by neighbors, and arrested and jailed Kenny.”
Mattingly previously said that “misinformation” fueled the public anger at the officers who shot Taylor, causing them to be labeled as murderers. He accused civil rights attorneys of “inflaming people” to “get the end result they wanted,” hinting at the civil settlement of $12 million awarded to Taylor’s family by the city of Louisville. Now he’s ready to tell the inside story of the tragedy in a book that will be published by Tennessee-based Post Hill Press and distributed by Simon & Schuster.
In September, Mattingly wrote an email to his fellow officers saying, “We did the legal, moral and ethical thing that night,” referring to the Taylor raid.
Read More: Kenneth Walker, Breonna Taylor’s boyfriend, files federal lawsuit against Louisville police
“You DO NOT deserve to be in this position. The position that allows thugs to get in your face and yell, curse and degrade you,” Mattingly wrote in repose to the protests that erupted in response to Taylor’s death. “The position that if you make a mistake during one of the most stressful times in your career, the department and FBI … go after you for civil rights violations,” he added.
Mattingly also claimed officers “wanted to do the right thing in the midst of an evil world” and that “police DO NOT CARE if you are black, white, Hispanic, Asian,” he wrote in his email. He added, “It’s sad how the good guys are demonized, and criminals are canonized.”
Hankison and Cosgrove were both fired from the Louisville Police Department, while Mattingly is still a sergeant-turned author. Only Hankison has been charged with three counts of first-degree wanton endangerment for firing shots into a neighboring apartment during the raid.
theGRIO’s Biba Adams contributed to this report.
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