Louisville police are now claiming that a popular barbecue restaurant owner, who was fatally shot by law enforcement during a protest rally, allegedly fired his weapon first. But his family disputed that as a possibility.

David McAtee, owner of YaYa’s BBQ was fatally wounded by police Monday (June 1) outside of his eatery. 

Interim Louisville Metropolitan Police Department chief Robert Schroeder said at a press conference that video footage taken from the restaurant and another business "appears to show McAtee firing a gun outside his business door as officers using pepper balls to clear Dino's lot approached his business," according to ABC News.

LMPD Training Division commander Maj. Paul Humphrey said that McAtee appeared to fire his weapon first, but officials still must "put all the pieces of the investigation together."

Members of McAtee’s family balked at the notion that he could have fired a weapon, telling the Louisville Courier-Journal that the police are trying to excuse the killing. "I think it shows them trying to justify why they were wrong," said his nephew, Marvin McAtee, who maintains that he "did not try to shoot at the police."

Police say the incident happened around 12:15 a.m. in the parking lot of Dino's Food Mart, about one block away from McAtee's restaurant. According to officials, someone shot at a crowd, and law enforcement returned fire, killing McAtee. The identities of the original gunman and the law enforcement officers who returned fire have not been released.

Officers did not have body cameras activated at the time the shooting took place. As a result, police chief Steve Conrad was fired later Monday.

Louisville has been a flashpoint of protest because it is one of the places where incidents of police violence have fueled nationwide outrage. In March, EMT Breonna Taylor was shot and killed by officers in her own home during a drug raid at the wrong location. Policemen opened fire upon coming into her house, a lawsuit filed by her family says. Her boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, thinking their apartment was being burglarized, fired at officers, wounding one. He was arrested, but charges against him were later dropped. The officers involved, Brett Hankison, Myles Cosgrove, and Jonathan Mattingly have not been charged.

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