McAtee funeral crowd

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- David McAtee, a Louisville restaurant owner affectionately known as "YaYa" and the "BBQ Man," was laid to rest Saturday. 

Several hundred people attended McAtee's funeral, which was streamed online for the public, at Canaan Christian Church on Hikes Lane. Several local pastors addressed the crowd, and there were choral and solo musical performances. 

McAtee, 53, was shot once in the chest and killed by a member of the Kentucky National Guard on June 1 at his restaurant, YaYa's BBQ, at 26th and Broadway in Louisville's Russel neighborhood. Police and a top official in Gov. Andy Beshear's administration said McAtee fired at least two shots at authorities, which prompted them to return fire. 

Louisville Metro Police officers and National Guardsmen were dispatched to 26th and Broadway around midnight to disperse a crowd that had gathered in a parking lot. Authorities were enforcing Mayor Greg Fischer's dusk-to-dawn curfew, which was instituted after protests demanding justice for Breonna Taylor, a black woman shot and killed by LMPD officers in March, had escalated to violence, property damage and looting. 

Surveillance video seems to show a Louisville Metro Police officer firing pepper balls first toward the door of McAtee’s building before McAtee fires his first shot. Kentucky State Police and the National Guard have launched separate investigations into the shooting. 

McAtee's mother, Odessa Riley, and attorneys representing the family, who plan to file a lawsuit over the shooting, deny claims that McAtee fired at officers first. 

"I just sit there and I just watched it and I felt bad, but then I'm saying, 'That's not my son,'" Riley told WDRB News on June 2, referring to surveillance video of the shooting. "... He don't do stuff like that. He took care of people. He fed people on that corner ... even the police."

Louisville Metro Police officers did not record body-camera footage of the shooting at 26th and Broadway, which prompted Fischer to fire LMPD Chief Steve Conrad hours after McAtee was killed. 

Protesters in Louisville have chanted McAtee's name during demonstrations against police brutality in the weeks following his death. During Saturday's service, Rev. Timothy Findley Jr. of Kingdom Fellowship Church encouraged mourning attendees to find comfort in continuing to fight for justice to ensure McAtee's death "was not in vain." 

McAtee's death should serve as a reminder that "life is short, and whatever impact we are going to make we need to make it now," added Rev. Kevin Cosby of St. Stephen Church. 

A mural of McAtee was painted on the side of The Limbo Tiki Bar & Lounge at Fourth and Chestnut streets. In McAtee's memory, Louisville chef Edward Lee recently said his restaurant Milkwood will reopen as the McAtee Community Kitchen, which will will serve families in Louisville's west end, Shelby Park, Smoketown, Russell and California neighborhoods and help those communities with groceries, supplies and more.

"Boy, did brother David make a profound and lasting impact — not only upon the community he loved but in his phenomenal contribution to the justice work of those who are the least among us," Cosby said. 

McAtee was buried at Green Meadows Cemetery after the funeral service. 

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