Simon & Schuster won't distribute book written by officer involved in Breonna Taylor shooting
Publishing company Simon & Schuster announced it will not distribute a book written by one of the Louisville police officers involved in the fatal shooting of Breonna Taylor.
Jonathan Mattingly, who participated in a police raid that led to the death of Taylor, got a book deal with Post Hill Press, a Tennessee-based print and e-book publishing house. However, the company's distributor, Simon & Schuster – a division of ViacomCBS – scrapped plans to distribute it.
"Like much of the American public, earlier today Simon & Schuster learned of plans by distribution client Post Hill Press to publish a book by Jonathan Mattingly," the company said in a statement on Twitter. "We have subsequently decided not to be involved in the distribution of this book."
According to the Courier Journal, the book was titled, "The Fight for the Truth: The Inside Story Behind the Breonna Taylor Tragedy."
Last year, Mattingly opened up about the incident to the Courier-Journal and ABC News. He told "Good Morning America" that he felt "mostly frustration" while watching protests in response to Taylor's death.
"It's not a race thing, like people wanna try to make it to be. It's not," he said. "This is the point where we're doing our job, we return fire. This is not us hunting somebody down, not kneeling on a neck. This is nothing like that."
On March 13, 2020, police executed a no-knock warrant for a drug case connected to Taylor's ex-boyfriend, Jamarcus Glover. Her boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, a licensed gun owner, thought they were intruders and fired a shot, hitting Mattingly in the leg. Police opened fire and killed Taylor, a 26-year-old EMT.
Mattingly claimed police knocked on the door several times, but Walker told "CBS This Morning" co-host Gayle King that there was "a loud bang," but no one responded when he and Taylor asked who it was.
Taylor did not have a criminal record and no drugs were found that night. No one has been charged in her death. Now-fired Louisville police officer Brett Hankison was indicted on wanton endangerment charges for firing shots into a neighbor's apartment during the raid.
The death of Taylor inspired protests nationwide and more than a year after her death, Kentucky's House passed a bill limiting no-knock warrants.
