Sept. 16, 2020 LEO Weekly

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THE INTERIM CHIEF WE NEED | PAGE 5 BOURBON FOR ALL COURSES! | PAGE 29

MUSIC + ART

POLICE USED CLASSIC ‘GIRLFRIEND’ TACTIC | PAGE 6 SWEET ETHIOPIAN HONEY WINE? | PAGE 27

LEOWEEKLY.COM // SEPTEMBER 16, 2020

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A LETTER TO THE COMMUNITY

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BY LEO WEEKLY We at LEO offer our sincerest congratulations to The Courier Journal for winning its 11th Pulitzer Prize, this one for studiously and unrelentingly chronicling the avalanche of last-minute pardons and commutations handed out by the corrupt, craven and mercenary Gov.-reject Matt Bevin.

We are fortunate as a city to have it as our paper. In a poignant tribute and plea, former CJ reporter Howard Fineman wrote in The Washington Post that the paper’s latest plaudit “should remind us (and surely was meant to remind us), that what we call ‘local’ journalism is profoundly essential to self-government as the Founders designed it, and to the American way of life.” He cited a study that found nearly 1,800 newspapers have closed since 2004, and he said, “Virtually all of the remaining 7,000 are thinner and weaker than ever.” He implored you to subscribe to the paper because, as the op-ed’s headline said: “My former newspaper is struggling — and is more important than ever.”

This is all true, but there is more.

What Fineman’s op-ed neglected to underscore is that the news media landscape extends far beyond daily newspapers and must include alternative weeklies.

Alt-weeklies also provide “local journalism” and are “profoundly essential.” They are critically important because they work in the margins and areas where newspapers do not or cannot. They provide free-to-read accounts of a community’s culture, ethos and priorities. Good ones are not substitutes for daily newspapers, although their coverage and stories may overlap.

At LEO, our goal since John Yarmuth founded it in 1990 has been to dive deeply into areas that The CJ and other mainstream news media have neglected, dismissed or overlooked. Accordingly, LEO is the authority on local music, theater and visual arts. We publish A&E guides twice a year. Every issue of LEO has (or had) at least two food and drink stories, including reviews, a beer column and insiders’ views on the service industry. We offer a range of commentary, which, admittedly, skews left but also has included conservative and right-leaning views (such as a column from, gasp — Mitch McConnell). We print op-eds that The CJ would not, such as from Black Lives Matter. We champion equality and provide a voice to the LGBTQ+ community. Our printed and online lists celebrate the best things to do in the region to help you plan your week and weekends. We also publish news stories that are written differently (we’d like to say, more interestingly) than a newspaper would run. They include primary source stories (first-person) and stories told through alternative (there is that word again) formats. Our core topics include those that the daily paper rarely touches, such as urban planning, race relations, labor and the environment (since The CJ’s ace enviro reporter moved on). And, they include media criticism (we are looking at you CJ, but we have given ourselves thorns) because who else is going to do it?

In short, Louisville has at least six ways you can get your news, counting TV and radio.

We try to not be like any of them.

We try not to tell the same story.

We try to be more interesting and less predictable.

And the hundreds of thousands of people who read us and click on our stories tell us we are doing something right.

Alas, LEO, as you might imagine, also has been crippled by this virus, as have alt-weeklies across the nation.

LEO is free to pick up and relies almost entirely on advertising. No subscriptions. No grants. No membership drive for donations twice a year.

The backbone of our advertising is entertainment (think: music, ballet, theater and visual art) and food and drink. Similarly, we distribute to places where people enjoy those activities and relax (think: bars, coffee shops, restaurants, etc.), and those have been closed. LEO already runs lean and has not had to furlough any editorial staff — yet — but our editorial budget has been cut by three-quarters. LEO has been online-only mostly since the epidemic began. Starting with this issue, our goal is to publish a print edition every other week. Fortunately, we have been an outlier among alt-weeklies, so far.

A story from NiemanLab listed more than 40 alt-weeklies that had taken steps to survive within just days of us all realizing this pandemic was real.

Many suspended print publication, others furloughed staff and, still, others asked for donations.

They included Pittsburgh City Paper, which launched a membership program: “in order to help fight some of these losses, with the hope that readers who depend on our daily coverage of local news, arts, music, food, and entertainment recognize the importance in the work we do to keep the city informed and want us to continue.”

We like that idea!

Won’t you please consider helping to fund LEO’s mission by underwriting a reporter or providing financial support for more stories?

You could sponsor a reporter to cover a specific topic or issue, such as visual arts or theater or labor… or poverty… or the environment or… you name it.

Perhaps you want to sponsor a weekly column on dance or jazz, or you want to underwrite a series of stories on land use in The West End. You would not have a say in exactly what we write and what gets printed, but you would see more coverage in the area you have selected.

If you are interested, please contact us at: leoweekly.com And, please, if you value LEO and want us to continue to survive and thrive, continue picking up the papers, continue sharing stories on social media and consider advertising if you do not already.

As always but particularly now, thank you for reading LEO, and thanks to all of you who have emailed and called to ask when you would see another printed edition on the news stands.

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LEOWEEKLY.COM // SEPTEMBER 16, 2020

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‘The Last Supper’ by Andy Warhol. 1986. Screen print and colored graphic art paper collage on HMP paper. The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh; Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. 1998.1.2126.

ANOTHER SIDE OF ANDY WARHOL The famous pop art innovator Andy Warhol is generally known for his distinct style and his place in that storied 1960s, New York scene, but a lesser known aspect of his work is currently on display at Speed Art Museum. The exhibition “Andy Warhol: Revelation” — which goes though November 29 — examines Warhol’s art that reflected his Christian faith. Go to leoweekly.com, to read Jo Anne Triplett’s article about the ongoing exhibition.

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ON THE COVER THE INTERIM CHIEF WE NEED | PAGE 5 BOURBON FOR ALL COURSES! | PAGE 29

POLICE USED CLASSIC ‘GIRLFRIEND’ TACTIC | PAGE 6 SWEET ETHIOPIAN HONEY WINE? | PAGE 27

PHOTO BY JON CHERRY CHERRYTREEIMAGERY.COM Through November 29

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LEO Weekly is published weekly by LEO Weekly LLC. Copyright LEO Weekly LLC. All rights reserved. The opinions expressed herein are exclusively those of the writers and do not necessarily reflect the position of the Publisher. LEO Weekly is available free of charge, limited to one copy per reader. No portion may be reproduced in whole or in part by any means, including electronic retrieval systems, without the express permission of LEO Weekly LLC. LEO Weekly may be distributed only by authorized independent contractors or authorized distributors. Louisville Eccentric Observer (LEO) is a trademark of LEO Weekly LLC.

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Discover another side of the Pop artist of Campbell’s soup can fame. Andy Warhol: Revelation is the first exhibition to comprehensively examine Warhol’s complex Catholic faith in relation to his artistic production.

Andy Warhol: Revelation is organized by the Andy Warhol Museum.

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Exhibition season support provided by: Cary Brown and Steven E. Epstein Paul and Deborah Chellgren Debra and Ronald Murphy

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ON: EDITOR’S NOTE, #JUSTICEFORBREONNA, NOT POLITICS Always someone else’s fault. —Gary Butts

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Especially so when it *is* someone else’s fault. When Repub state legislators denied just about any initiative Jefferson County sought. —Roseanne Johnson Southard

ON: WOULD YOU TRUST MCCONNELL OR MCGRATH ON THE ENVIRONMENT? Neither. —Kevin Hobstetter

We already know one of them isn’t, and hasn’t been, doing anything so. —Patrick McQuillin

ON: DAN DELANEY, RUMORS, NOT PROTESTERS, CAUSED CITY HAVOC

Nextdoor is becoming a real perpetrator of these rumors. One woman warned everyone that there were busloads of rioters arriving and they were renting hotel rooms up and down Hurstbourne Lane. They were here to “hijack cars and come after young women.” I do believe the post was eventually taken down.

—Dolita Murray Dohrman

ON: SADIQA REYNOLDS, ‘DO NOT BLAME PROTESTERS FOR FAILED DOWNTOWN BUSINESSES’

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Yes, do blame protesters. Without them our PD would not have to have additional training.. They are very well trained to handle normal happenings. —Martha Berry Martha Berry, the protesters are protesting for police reform, defunding and/or abolishment. They’re absolutely not well trained to handle anything which is why unarmed people are getting killed across the nation by police. —Phil Najjar

ON: WHAT DOES THE FUTURE HOLD FOR JEFFERSON SQUARE?

Time to hold accountable those that would murder innocent people of color. —Suz Franklin

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ON: UNDERCOVER

I’ve been predicting this very scenario for a month or more.

— Mack Thompson Mack Thompson, I have also. Cameron is waiting to see which way the wind blows so he knows how to spin it.

— David Kahl Mitch is high AF in this pic, too. —Adam Temple

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LEOWEEKLY.COM // SEPTEMBER 16, 2020

VIEWS

EDITOR’S NOTE

YVETTE GENTRY, THE INTERIM POLICE CHIEF WE NEED

By Aaron Yarmuth | ayarmuth@leoweekly.com YVETTE GENTRY might call herself “chief for a while,” but she could be the police chief who saves the city.

That might sound hyperbolic, but consider the issues that face the city and what it will take to repair the community’s distrust of police and the unequal justice Black residents face.

Mayor Greg Fischer is still months away from hiring the next full-time chief of police, and the protests — uninterrupted for over 100 days — may escalate if the police officers who killed Breonna Taylor are not charged.

But Chief Gentry has enough time and is the right person to begin rebuilding community trust today, before it gets worse.

She can do this, in part, because of her background, but also, more importantly, because she has proven she understands what the community needs, not just what the police department needs.

Sure, her history with the police department is important and will help to command trust and respect from the officers she now leads.

She was a decorated officer with over 20 years of service who rose to the rank of deputy police chief before retiring in 2014.

She was Fischer’s chief of community building and most recently a project director at Metro United Way. Now, she is Louisville’s first woman and the third Black police chief.

But, Gentry’s 10-minute introduction address last week made it clear that it isn’t just her biography that makes her the police chief the city needs right now. She demonstrated an emotional empathy with the community and an understanding that her role is a lot bigger than fixing any particular issue or problem — a message to both police officers and protesters.

“I caution you to not make this a singlestruggle issue,” she said.

In other words, whatever one issue you think she was hired for… that’s not it.

If you think she was hired to fire the officers who killed Breonna Taylor, for instance, you may be disappointed. She returned to do much more than fire people or help resolve Breonna Taylor’s killing. Her job is much

bigger and more complex.

At her introduction, Gentry recognized, implicitly, her role in addressing the community’s concerns on critical issues, including economic, integrity and transparency within the department and what we can expect going forward.

“For all of you that urged me to take this position … I’m here,” she said. “I’m not here just to help you unboard your beautiful buildings downtown. I’m here to work with you to unboard the community that I served … with all my heart in West Louisville that was boarded for 20 or 30 years, and I just could not find the help. So I’m here to help you do that, because you promised to help me do that.”

It sounds to me that she wants to help end the protests — so the boards come down from the windows downtown — but that you, the mayor, council and the rest of the community are going to have to help bring down the boards off the windows in The West End. “For the past four months, [it’s] been tough for everyone. It’s been tough on police officers out there trying to hold the line. It’s been tough on the men and women out there protesting. Over a hundred days. Seeing things, just feel so hopeless. But I will just say that is just a glimpse of how a lot of people have been feeling for a long time and we can’t go back.”

What I hear her saying is that the police,

as well as the community, will recognize that the protesters’ pain, frustration and suffering are legitimate. And, going forward, the police will not be used to return things to the way they were. There is no returning to the way things were.

“I think our city is at a point of reckoning, that only truth can bring us out of,” she said. “Our city is going to crumble if we don’t start telling truths.”

No more concealing and covering for misdeeds, personal or institutional failures.

No more cover-ups. No more excuses when it comes to accountability.

But, beyond her words, Gentry conveyed an emotional empathy that can restore confidence in the leadership of the police department.

Plus, she’s going to serve in this position for only four to six months, until Fischer hires the next full-time chief. She said she does not want to be the next chief, so what she is doing is not meant to elevate her personal career — it’s genuine public service.

In hindsight, Chief Gentry’s reassuring presence and selfless leadership exposed even more deficiencies in police leadership than before she took the podium.

But, by the time she finished speaking, for the first time in four months, perhaps years, optimism began to show through on the city, and it felt as though, as Gentry said, “This is going to signal a change. A new day is coming.” •

UNDERCOVER

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BREONNA TAYLOR IS A CLASSIC ‘GIRLFRIEND’ CASE STRAIGHT OUT OF THE POLICE PLAYBOOK

By Ted Shouse | leo@leoweekly.com

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LEOWEEKLY.COM // SEPTEMBER 16, 2020

WHAT MANY PEOPLE don’t realize is that the Breonna Taylor case is straight out of the police playbook. It’s so common that colleagues and I call these cases, “The Girlfriend.” Here’s how it works: the police conduct a drug trafficking investigation. They identify a suspect, get some surveillance video, collect some wiretaps that may or may not be relevant and possibly intercept a package of drugs. But to make a trafficking case stick, the prosecution needs a witness: a real live person to take the stand and point at the defendant and declare — “He’s a drug dealer.”

So, they arrest their suspect’s girlfriend — or ex-girlfriend — usually on little evidence. She frequently has no criminal record. That doesn’t matter. The police threaten her with felony charges — complicity to trafficking or something else. If she has children, they imply that her kids will be taken away, and she’ll have a heck of a time getting them back. The police then say that this nightmare will disappear if she simply testifies against her boyfriend. Sometimes they squeeze the boyfriend instead, telling she would agree to testify against Jamarcus him they’ll charge her if he doesn’t plead Glover. But everything went wrong. The guilty. warrant never should have been issued.

It’s a powerful love that can withstand The surveillance failed to reveal that a third that pressure. Sometimes the girlfriend party, Kenneth Walker, won’t do it. She was with Taylor. When refuses to agree with The police and the police broke in the accusations, and prosecutors tried unannounced, Walker then we’ve got a fight stood his ground and on our hands. More to flip the script tried to defend himself often, she realizes she doesn’t have the and get Glover to and Taylor.

Louisville police resources to fight smear Taylor in officers killed Taylor back. She agrees to night. Her death plead guilty herself exchange for a plea that brought all of this to a lesser charge and to light and focused testify against her boybargain. In midthe nation’s attenfriend. The prosecution July, they offered tion on our city. But, now has a powerful than admit their witness, leaving the Glover a deal that rather errors and try to make boyfriend little choice but to also plead guilty. could have led to it right, the police department doubled Everyone gets conprobation instead down and tried to victed of something smear Taylor. and the machine grinds of prison.

The police and on. This happens every prosecutors tried to day in Louisville. flip the script and get Glover to smear Taylor Every day. in exchange for a plea bargain. In mid-July, That’s what the police were probably they offered Glover a deal that could have doing in the Taylor case: storming into her led to probation instead of prison. All he apartment late at night to scare her so that

Louisville defense attorney Ted Shouse.

had to do was say that his ex-girlfriend was involved in drug trafficking. Glover declined the offer.

And let’s talk turkey: Underlying all of these cases is the open demoralization of these women. The police position is clear — if you’ve had a sexual relationship with a drug trafficker, then you are unworthy of respect. You are “other,” you are “less than,” and they can use you as a pawn in their war on drugs without compunction. That’s how poor, mostly Black women get treated by our criminal justice system.

Meanwhile, our city is being torn apart.

Between the pandemic and our city leaders’ absolute refusal to address the systemic racism of our criminal justice system, Louisville will never be the same as it was before this case came to light.

That’s a hard truth for a lot of us to accept. The exposure of decades of unequal policing and unequal prosecuting is going to leave a wound. For those of us who’ve seen this truth for years, I think it has come not a moment too soon. And I say to those of us who are just now waking up to this truth: It’s been a long time coming. • Ted Shouse has been a criminal defense lawyer for 21 years.

VIEWS

IF A GRAND JURY IS SET TO HEAR THE BREONNA TAYLOR CASE, WHAT ARE SOME POSSIBILITIES? [Ed. note: WAVE3 News has reported that, based on anonymous sources, Attorney General Daniel Cameron will soon present the Breonna Taylor case to a grand jury to consider whether police officers responsible for her death are charged. Cameron has not confirmed the report. He said on Twitter, in part: “My office has endeavored since day one to find the truth and pursue justice, wherever that may take us and however long that may take. In the meantime, conflicting rumors and reports circulate on a daily basis. The rumors do nothing to advance justice. When the investigation concludes and a decision is made, we will provide an update about an announcement. The news will come from our office and not unnamed sources. Until that time, the investigation is ongoing.” Here is an analysis of grand jury outcomes from veteran defense and civil rights lawyer David Mour.]

By David Mour | leo@leoweekly.com FOR my non-lawyer friends, the announcement today by Attorney General Daniel Cameron should cause no real optimism that Breonna Taylor’s family will receive the justice she deserved. (Breonna won’t get justice — they killed her.) Lawyers can spot Cameron’s game a mile off — he’s setting up the grand jury to take the fall.

If a prosecutor wishes to obtain an indictment, rarely does that not happen. The prosecutor can present whatever information he or she wants, and the standard of proof is very low. Very low. It also usually takes 10 or 15 minutes to present a case to the grand jury and then have jurors vote. Rarely do they not indict, and it’s usually because a prosecutor doesn’t want that result.

There’s an old lawyer saying: A prosecutor could indict a ham sandwich if he or she wanted. And it’s absolutely true.

So, will Cameron push the grand jurors to indict the three cops for a crime assigning responsibility for her death, e.g., murder, manslaughter or reckless homicide? If he doesn’t push for that and ask for it — it won’t happen.

If I were betting, he won’t push for that. He might even ask them not to do it, but that’s delicate, because the grand jury proceedings are recorded and are subject to discovery and our open records statute later on. I think he will present, not push for an indictment, and then say: “Well, it’s on the grand jurors, not me.”

As I have said all along, I think they will

indict former police Officer Brett Hankison for wanton endangerment (several counts) and Detective Joshua Jaynes for perjury based on the search warrant affidavit — and that’s it.

The only twist I see at present is: It appears none of Sgt. Jonathan Mattingly’s blood may have been in the apartment, and I believe he claimed to have been “in” when hit. If you take one to the femoral artery, in all likelihood there’s going to be a lot of blood everywhere, and it sounds like he may have been shot outside the apartment ,and, as I have speculated all along, possibly not

by Kenneth Walker’s single round.

Finally, I also believe since this occurred in Jefferson County, the grand jury would have to be a Jefferson County grand jury.

I’ve heard zero lawyer/courthouse scuttlebutt this is going down here in the next couple days.

But I’m just a lawyer... What do I know?

•

@leoweekly

David Mour has practiced law in Louisville since 1986. His practice includes civil rights and criminal defense.

LEOWEEKLY.COM // SEPTEMBER 16, 2020

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VIEWS

WEST OF NINTH @WESTOFNINTHLOUISVILLE PEOPLE, IN THEIR OWN WORDS...

By Walt and Marshae Smith | leo@leoweekly.com Sept. 9, 2020 Juan, Algonquin “I WAS BORN and raised in the West, on 41st and Broadway. Shit, my experience here has been lovely, painful and grateful. It showed me a lot. The hood will either make you or break you. It’s all about what you get out of it.

Growing up down here, I done seen a lot.

I done seen close friends lose their minds to schizophrenia or drugs. People just take the wrong route in life. At the end of the day, I’m grateful because it showed me hustle, and it showed me compassion. It showed me how to respect the process. It showed me

patience.

This year, I learned that you have to really love one another, even with COVID. Man, COVID took some people that I would’ve thought had years to live, like never die. It just taught me how to cherish life. My people’s granny died. They were saying that her husband was supposed to go before her. She caught COVID and didn’t want to go on the oxygen tank or the ventilator. It’s crazy. It broke a whole family down.

She was the leader, she kept the family together, and she’s gone. My whole lil’ neighborhood’s fucked up.

I’m just trying to stay focused and keep my head forward. I just gotta concentrate on goals. As a [n-word] from the hood, I wanna

own my own business. I’m trying to strive to get my lawn service back crackin’ that right way. I just gotta stay motivated.

Life keeps me motivated. I got two kids, man, and they motivate me. I want them to want for nothing. I don’t want them to go through the struggle I went through or even have to be in the hood and see the struggle.

You feel me? I don’t even want them to see the struggle!

The biggest challenge that I face is selfconfidence. I have to believe in myself and want it for myself. As a Black man, I feel like everything’s already against you, so you have to be confident in everything that you do in life. Stay away from the opinionated.

Don’t care about people’s opinions because

they don’t matter. Nothing’s wrong in your eyes.

Be all you can be and if you can’t change the people around you, you gotta change the people around you. Don’t get caught up in what people think. Be you.” • West of Ninth began as a Louisville photography blog, westofninth.com, by two Russell residents, Walt and Shae Smith. With a love for their community, Walt and Shae see the value and potential of all nine neighborhoods that make West Louisville. Armed with a Nikon DSLR, a recorder and the ability to never meet a stranger, their goal is to shed light on the attributes that make West of Ninth the greatest.

Juan, Algonquin. | PHOTO BY WALT AND MARSHAE SMITH/WESTOFNINTH.COM

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LEOWEEKLY.COM // SEPTEMBER 16, 2020

NEWS & ANALYSIS

AFTER DOMESTIC VIOLENCE MURDER, CITY REVIEWS ITS RESPONSE: SHOULD OTHER CITIES, TOO?

By Eleanor Klibanoff | Kentucky Center For Investigative Reporting IN LATE JANUARY, Louisville Metro Police Department officers went to a house with blue steps in the Parkland neighborhood looking for a woman named Amanda Berry. Family members had reported her missing; neighbors would later say they’d heard her boyfriend beating her and yelling at her.

Police found her body in a storage container in the basement of the house.

She had been dead for “quite a long time,” police said.

Her boyfriend, William Sloss, was arrested and charged with murder and abuse of a corpse.

If this had happened anywhere else in Kentucky, that’s where the case would end. But because Berry died in Louisville in an apparent case of domestic violence homicide, there was one more step: Her case would be examined by the city’s Domestic Violence Fatality Review Committee.

Stakeholders from across the city would gather to look at every single place Berry and Sloss might have touched the system and figure out if there was a way her death might have been prevented — and whether that lesson might save someone else’s life in the future.

An LMPD official preparing for that committee meeting discovered something in their files: Two officers had been called out to that house with the blue steps just a month before Berry’s body was found.

The day after Christmas, Berry told the officers that Sloss had hit her, held her in the house, chased her down the street and took away her phone.

The officers did not fill out a report.

They did not arrest Sloss. They failed to “use all reasonable means to provide assistance,” according to police documents.

Instead, they left the scene — and left Berry alone with the man she had just called the cops on. A month later, she was found dead.

On May 22, LMPD charged the officers, Kierstin Holman and Cody Luckett, with failure of law enforce-

THORNS & ROSES THE WORST, BEST & MOST ABSURD THORN: STILL WANT JUSTICE FOR BREONNA

The city of Louisville settles with Breonna Taylor’s family for $12 million and enacts policing reforms but won’t fire all the cops who rained down bullets on this unarmed woman in her home? We hope the payout is not meant to soften any decision on whether the officers are charged. But, if any good comes of this, maybe it will be that such a tragedy can never happen again in our city.

THORN: THE GOP WANTS YOU DEAD

Kentucky hit a grim milestone last week: more than 1,000 COVID-19 deaths including a single-day record of 22 last Thursday. Gov. Andy Beshear said tough measures capped the surge. But he called out lawmakers who ask whether the numbers are inflated. “Shame on anybody, including many of our legislators and those that sit online all day, who claim those deaths aren’t real. There’s 1,000 families that will tell you they are very real and very painful. Let’s be better than that,” Beshear said.

THORN: COVID-19 A FRAUD, COUGH, COUGH?

ment to provide assistance to Berry.

Neither LMPD nor a lawyer for the officers responded to a request for comment. LMPD also denied several open records requests about the case, saying they would not turn over records while it’s still being prosecuted.

Long-time domestic violence advocates believe this is the first time since the fatality review committee was created that LMPD decided to bring criminal charges based on information generated by the review.

Despite regularly reviewing fatalities for more than 25 years, Louisville’s domestic violence response remains imperfect. The reviews often raise the same issues, again and again: the need for more funding, more cooperation, more understanding of the complex issues that lead to domestic violence deaths.

But members of the fatality review team say it has helped breed accountability among agencies. They point to the Berry case as a prime example of the value of these sorts of reviews.

But despite several efforts over the years, Louisville is currently the only city in Kentucky that reviews domestic violence deaths. Efforts to create a statewide review system have repeatedly failed.

A SHOCKING MURDER PROMPTED REVIEWS

Louisville officials began reviewing fatalities after a high-profile domestic violence murder in January 1991.

Bob Fortney shot and killed his estranged wife, Pam, in the middle of the day in the Highlands neighborhood before turning the gun on himself. Both were well-liked high school teachers in the Jefferson County Public Schools system, and the horrific, public nature of the murder outraged the city.

“A day of tragedy,” declared the Courier Journal over a full-page spread.

News coverage that followed outlined how Pam Fortney had tried repeatedly to seek help from the police, the courts and what was then called the Spouse Abuse Center.

“Her efforts were to no avail,” an article in the Courier Journal said.

That same week, Marcia Roth started her job as the director of the county’s brand new Office for Women.

Her original mandate was to improve opportunities for women in the area.

But the Fortney case put those plans on hold.

“I said to my boss, if we can’t keep women safe and alive, forget about improving their status,” she recalled in a recent interview.

Conspiracy talk like that likely inspired the 10 people who held signs in St. Matthews that reminded us of anti-fluoride protests, but, hey — don’t panic over a pandemic that has killed more Americans combined than died in World War I and wars in Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq. You know, every life is sacred.

THORN: JUSTICE CAMERON? HAHAHA! HA!

After tRump conceded that in February he purposely played down the coronavirus threat, contributing to, if not causing, the deaths of tens of thousands of people, he released a shiny object to distract our squirrel brains: a list of possible U.S. Supreme Court justices. They include state Attorney General Daniel Cameron, a puppet of U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell. When asked what they thought about a Justice Cameron, any sane person with an IQ higher than a potato’s said: “Ha ha hahaha! Ha ha haha!

THORN: UOFL, READ THE ANTIRACISM MEMO

UofL issued a public safety alert for a “Black male wearing a red hoodie.” That put a lot of people in danger. President Neeli Bendapudi apologized: “While the description may have been true, it is too vague to be of any help and it perpetuates negative stereotypes (especially on a campus whose colors are red and black and whose student population is proudly more than 12% Black) that makes some members of our campus community targets.”

THORN: CJ TAKES IT ON THE HEAD

Activists hated this Courier Journal headline, “Will Calm or Chaos Win?” It was over a story about how protesters may react if Breonna Taylor’s death brings no charges.

Poet-activist Hannah L. Drake tweeted: “Saying chaos adds to a narrative I am working overtime to stop.” The CJ news director tweeted: “We will try to do better.”

LEOWEEKLY.COM // SEPTEMBER 16, 2020

9

NEWS & ANALYSIS

So Roth set out to talk to everyone Pam and Bob Fortney interacted with — the police, the county attorney, the shelter, the judges, lawyers, hospital workers — to see how something like this had happened.

This was, essentially, Louisville’s first domestic violence fatality review.

Roth found that every agency felt that they had done everything right; every agency thought someone else had dropped the ball.

She planned to produce a report about how this could have been prevented, and then move on to other issues.

“I never moved on to other issues,” Roth said.

Instead, she started what would eventually be known as the Domestic Violence Prevention Coordinating Council, which Roth still serves on today. The council has representatives from across the community: judges, prosecutors, police, corrections, schools, medical professionals, legislators and citizens.

The council created the Fatality Review Committee in 1996 to begin formally doing what Roth had undertaken herself: put each fatality under a microscope to see what lessons could be gleaned.

At this time, domestic violence coordinating councils and fatality review teams were popping up across the country. This was the beginning of a slow — and still incomplete — shift from seeing domestic violence as an individual failing to a systemic issue that should be addressed by the whole community.

In Louisville, every member brings all the information their agency has on that case to the table. They’ll watch court hearings, review police files and see whether the victim ever reached out to the Center for Women and Families or a hospital. If there are kids involved, they’ll see if the family interacted with Child Protective Services, or the school district.

The participants sign a confidentiality agreement at the outset of each meeting, and they’re closed to the public. But the group puts out a biannual report with their findings; each report is dedicated to the lives lost to domestic violence in Jefferson County.

Louisville’s fatality review committee has met consistently since it was founded in 1996. It’s unique in that it reviews open cases; most cities wait until the case is closed. This means they can review cases and issue recommendations without waiting years for a case to make its way through the criminal justice system.

The approach is not to “shame and blame” any one agency, Roth said, but rather

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LEOWEEKLY.COM // SEPTEMBER 16, 2020

to identify holes in the system that everyone can work together to fix.

When the committee first started, it was populated by the heads of agencies — the commonwealth’s attorney, the police chief, the coroner, people who had the power to institute changes and act decisively.

And Roth said they were addressing serious, obvious issues: cultures of victimblaming, lack of trust and communication between agencies, and misunderstandings about domestic violence.

It has not been 25 years of uninterrupted progress, Roth said. There have been times when lower-level agency representatives populated the group, and momentum seemed to lull, and many times when the same issues seemed to surface again and again.

“I think like anything, if you start resting on your laurels, it goes backwards,” Roth said. “You have to just keep impressing upon everybody all the time, ‘This is good, but we can do better.’ Because until we have no domestic violence murders, we’re not doing enough.”

DOES IT WORK?

That is the main criticism of domestic violence fatality review teams: They surface the same issues year after year, and little change happens once everyone leaves the conference room.

Experts say fatality review is only useful as one piece of a robust domestic violence response system, and its value cannot necessarily be measured in hard numbers.

Heather Storer, an assistant professor at the Kent School of Social Work at the University of Louisville who has researched domestic violence fatality review teams, said there’s no one solution to prevent these issues.

“We can’t expect one intervention to have momentous change,” she said. “[Domestic violence fatality review] is just one brick in a large sea change that is happening.”

She sees the presence of a fatality review team as a sign that a community may be willing to consider systemic reforms to its domestic violence response. And it means, at the very least, different entities are talking to each other more than they normally would.

But the best work should happen after the committee adjourns.

“We’re really good at identifying needs, but what do we do when we identify these needs?” she said. “Agencies are doing everything they can but they still are dealing with chronic underfunding. They’re really challenged with resources. Law enforcement

on it? That is very encouraging to me.” is being asked to do a lot more with a lot less.”

Elizabeth Wessels-Martin runs the Center for Women and Families, and sits on LouSTATEWIDE, EFFORTS HAVE isville’s fatality review committee. She said FLOUNDERED the committee does a great job of having Though Louisville is the only city in the frank, difficult conversations about ways commonwealth that’s currently reviewing they may have erred. domestic violence deaths, they were not “But I don’t know how much work is alone in developing a coordinating council done outside of there,” she said. “Once we and a fatality review committee. In fact, they identify the gaps, now what? What are we weren’t even the first in Kentucky. doing to close them?”

In 1987, Lexington started the Domestic To that end, Louisville commissioned Violence Prevention Board, which tackled a report last year that looked deeply at domestic violence cases as well as child those gaps across all of the city’s domesabuse and issues facing the elderly and tic violence systems. Despite having a disabled communities. coordinating council for nearly 30 years, a “I felt like the greatest dishonor we could fatality review committee for more than 25, do to a victim who didn’t survive would and adding an interagency work group in be to let whatever happened — if we could recent years, the report found 86 areas for have prevented it — happen to someone improvement. else,” said Teri Faragher, who until 2015 Many of them was the director of were specific — the board.

The council created expand funding for Faragher and existing programs, the board created the Fatality Review Lexington’s fatality restructure victim advocacy services Committee in 1996 review committee in throughout the crimi1996, the same year to begin formally nal justice system, as Louisville’s. create more training It suspended doing what Roth opportunities, reform operations in 2002 for and enforce gun laws. what was supposed to had undertaken But the overarchbe a brief interlude. herself: put each ing theme connecting Advocates and state the recommendations officials planned to fatality under a was simple: Agenlaunch a statewide cies are too siloed, microscope to see fatality review project and to improve and help local comwhat lessons could munities create their victim response, they need to work better own boards. Lexingbe gleaned. together. ton’s board wanted to That’s exactly ensure their methods what a domestic violence fatality review and data collection were consistent with the team is supposed to do, but it’s not a silver state plan. bullet, experts say. It’s a mechanism of Five years later, none of the state’s gradual change, that, hopefully, over time, plans had materialized, so Lexington began will change attitudes and practices. reviewing cases again. They continued That’s part of why Roth was “thrilled” until 2018. After Faragher retired, the to see the news that LMPD had charged group paused fatality reviews to reassess two officers with misdemeanors out of the their approach. Her successor, Stephanie Amanda Berry case.

Theakston, said they hope to resume in the She said that’s a good example of how future. this should work: It’s not the committee’s The idea of a statewide domestic viojob to tell LMPD how to deal with officers lence fatality review committee was revived who mishandled a case. But in preparing once more in 2011. Then-Attorney General to present on the case, or in the collective Jack Conway convened the first Statewide review that follows, an agency may find Summit on Domestic Violence Fatalities, something they want to take their own aimed at identifying areas for reform to action on. reduce the number of deaths.

“Let’s go back to [discussions of] police The goals, according to a report from the accountability recently,” Roth said. “Isn’t it time, were four-fold: wonderful that one of their own called them —establish a statewide fatality review

NEWS & ANALYSIS

program; ity review committee into every city is not —develop a plan to collect and analyze enough to substantially change attitudes and practices. But done well, she said, it can be a domestic violence fatalities; —develop local fatality review teams; very powerful tool.

—and develop model policies and proceAs it stands now, only one city in Kentucky regularly reviews domestic violence dures to guide those local teams. fatalities. The Berry case has cast new But the first summit was also the last. attention on the otherwise quiet work of Nearly a decade later, there is no statewide Louisville’s fatality review committee. fatality review, Kentucky still does not track At a recent meeting of the Domestic domestic violence fatalities, and there are Violence Prevention Coordinating Council, actually fewer local fatality review teams Major Shannon Lauder said it was “really than there were before the summit. disheartening” to see how the officers had The summit did lead to a one-off report responded to Berry. on domestic violence fatalities in Kentucky, Advocates say LMPD has invested time led by T.K. Logan, a domestic violence and resources into improving its domestic researcher and professor in the Department violence response in recent years. They’ve of Behavioral Science at the University of added training, advocated for statewide Kentucky. changes and created programs specifically “That report was pretty superficial,” intended to catch these highest-risk cases Logan said. “It was just sort of, here’s some — like the Lethality Assessment Program, data: Here’s how many women killed men; through which an here’s how many officer could have men killed women.

People involved asked Berry a few Here’s the sentencing questions intended trends.” with the summit to assess how likely But even that level of data collection said it was a good she was to be killed within the next 24 doesn’t exist today. idea; there just hours.

The key to using If she’d tested that data, Logan wasn’t enough high enough, they said, would be to continue to collect political support, or would have put her it and look at trends on the phone with the funding, at the time Center for Women year-over-year.

Families right People involved to keep it moving. and there at the scene; with the summit said the Center keeps a it was a good idea; there just wasn’t enough political support, or number of shelter beds open specifically for funding, at the time to keep it moving. these highest-risk cases.

But the officers didn’t even take a report.

Instead, they left, and the next time LMPD was called to the house, it was to find her WITH BERRY CASE, MISSED dead.

OPPORTUNITIES “Those officers never could have anticiThere is some precedent for statewide pated the outcome of that case when they reviews of deaths. Under Kentucky law, deaths suspected to be caused by child abuse didn’t take a report,” Lauder said. “It really opened everyone’s eyes to see how serious must be investigated by the Child Fatality our decisions that we make every day are.” and Near Fatality External Review Panel, It seems to be having an impact: Even a 20-member interdisciplinary group that though domestic violence calls have reviews all deaths suspected to be a result of decreased compared to last year, Lauder said child abuse and neglect. the number of domestic violence reports That panel publishes general notes on officers filed has increased by 7% compared each case, as well as an annual report with to this same time last year. statewide recommendations.

“I think that case is part of the reason There are no similar requirements for why that number is up, if I’m being totally Kentuckians killed by domestic violence; honest,” she said. “So there has been some in fact, the state does not even keep track of good outcome from that being made public.” how many people die by domestic violence • each year.

That would be a good starting point, Contact Eleanor Klibanoff at Logan said. She’s lukewarm on the value eklibanoff@kycir.org of fatality review: Just dropping a fatal-

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By Scott Recker | srecker@leoweekly.com IN THE SECOND VERSE of Tez of 2Deep’s song “BLM,” he delivers a sharp, evocative and gut-wrenching statement. He asks his listeners to imagine him as George Floyd, his wife as Breonna Taylor, his son as Tamir Rice and his daughter as Korryn Gaines. He wants you to visualize him and his family as the victims of police brutality, a reminder that they could be at any time.

A reminder that a simple traffic stop could end his life.

A reminder why the Black Lives Matter movement is important.

“My biggest thing is to get out my voice and to use my talents to speak on what I feel is important,” Tez, aka Cortez Hampton, said.

Sociopolitical songs have long been intertwined with Louisville’s music scene, especially with hip-hop and punk, but since the current, expansive civil rights movement is shining a light on systemic racism and injustice, there’s been more pointed protest music coming out of the city. And what we’re seeing could only be the beginning, since the pandemic has boxed out some musicians from recording anything new.

Kali Malia, who spearheaded a recently-released compilation of protest songs called Black Quota, said that music about injustice is usually so poignant and dynamic because the artists are digging into very tough moments from their past.

“When you hear songs like that, a lot of times you can feel and hear the power and emotion behind it, that’s fueling it, that the artist felt from all of the experiences that the artist had and saw,” she said.

And Malia said that those personal stories can help inspire other people to want to influence change and equality.

“Usually, you hear some shocking or jarring information that you didn’t know before,” she said. “At first, it puts you into an uncomfortable place of, ‘Oh, the world isn’t what I thought it was.’ And then you have to face that and figure out what that means for you and what you’re going to do about it.”

For the compilation, Malia recorded the title track, which is about how, when she was 7 years old, she wasn’t accepted into a school with openings because they had “already filled the black quota.” Now, 22, Malia revisited that memory, but her song also ties in the volatile present and hope for a better future.

“This is a theme throughout all of my art specifically: I like to acknowledge the pain, or whatever the negative feeling is, but also offer a way forward,” Malia said.

Tez of 2Deep.

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LEOWEEKLY.COM // SEPTEMBER 16, 2020

The Black Quota compilation.

THE SYSTEMIC MACHINE

In 2017, Slugga, aka Stephen Bright, released the song “Freedom,” a soulful hip-hop call for equality in the face of ever-present injustice. And, last week, he recorded “Hysteria,” a forthcoming companion song for “Freedom,” which acts as a continuation of the same conversation with the current social climate in focus.

“When you go back and read America’s history, and you understand the traumatizing things that the systemic machine America was built on, it was beneficial for the United States, but yet it was off the backs and the blood and the trauma of us,” he said. “Now, this younger generation out here, they’re different. They’re not as compliant. They’re not as forgiving. And this is what we see. On the opposite side of that, those who are not minorities, they have hysteria, they’re like, ‘Oh my god, the world’s going crazy,’ but this is what happens when nobody pays attention.”

Bright hopes his songs act as a conduit between what’s actually happening during the protests and his listeners. He said people might have a jaded view of what’s going on downtown right now, so he wants to relay the truth, and hopefully inspire people to contribute.

“It gives people a direction that might not have one,” Bright said. “They see all of this chaos going on, so they don’t know what to do or where to go, because all they see is chaos.

It’s informative, it’s going to give you a side that the media’s not going to give you, the side of what’s happening in the streets.”

THE SPIRIT OF LOUISVILLE

On Sept. 24, rapper Dom B, aka Dom Betts, will release the single “City On Fire,” which he describes as an uplifting track. The title is a play on words. He heard a politician say that the “city was on fire,” meant as negative hyperbole, so he repurposed the term as a positive metaphor.

“You may say the ‘city is on fire,’ it’s going to crap, it’s a negative thing, but no, the city

The Joy Center’s All Cops.

is on fire because our hearts are coming together for Breonna, and anybody who’s had injustice, because this is happening currently across the nation,” he said. “Yeah, the city is on fire.

They’re fired up. They’re angry. They’re aware.”

The bravery and camaraderie of the downtown protests inspired Betts to write a reflective song, and he said that he hopes it will inspire people to continue to march.

“The real spirit of Louisville is coming out,” he said. “You see a lot of people from a lot of different backgrounds coming out to speak up about racial injustice, and they’re coming out to speak up for the people less heard. And now we see a lot of politicians and people in the administration aren’t on our same team and the people of Louisville want to make this known so we can make this better and equal for everyone.”

UP CLOSE AND PERSONAL

The punk band The Joy Center’s two-song EP, All Cops, hones in on police brutality.

Singer and songwriter Tom Dumstorf said that what’s happening in America today reminds him of a place that he lived decades ago.

“I lived in the Soviet Union as it fell apart, and I’ve seen violence and authoritarian control kind of up close and personal,” he said. “It’s not geographically exclusive, it’s like everybody can invent their own version, and it all pretty much looks the same.”

The Joy Center’s songs are straightforward and clear, with messages that don’t dance around with poetic ambiguity. Dumstorf hopes that registers with people who feel disenfranchised by the people in power.

“What is held up, the values of society, when they’re blatantly contradicted by what the fuck is going on everyday, then you have to find support somewhere,” he said. • LEOWEEKLY.COM // SEPTEMBER 16, 2020

13

By Danielle Grady | dgrady@leoweekly.com MOST of the artists we spoke to are not new to infusing their work with elements of social justice. As a nonbinary, Black, queer person, Kenyatta Bosman’s art focused on the queer Black experience well before Louisville’s daily Justice for Breonna protests. And, “artist + organizer” Brianna Harlan already specialized in “socially engaged” art and activism. But, the current racial justice movement has shaped their work in different ways. For Bosman, it’s sent them to the streets with their camera. For Harlan, it’s steered her projects toward addressing immediate community needs. We interviewed five artists with local ties about how the movement has impacted their work.

things. But, I didn’t know if I found or I could see where I fit in in the world doing those things until I brought in more community focused, community based, conceptually sound work.

On how the Justice for Breonna and current racial justice movement has influenced her work: “I mean I’ve done some pieces, like the augmented reality piece that I worked with Breonna’s family to do and Nancy Baker Cahill and 21c [Museum Hotel]. So that piece. I think, right now, I’m just really trying to focus on really immediate needs of community.

So, sometimes, or often, I would do more long-term relationship work or self-determination work. But right now, I’m like, OK, what does the community need to kind of get us through these times. And so I’m kind of balancing those a bit more. And so, with projects like Black Love Blooms or the virtual monument, it’s kind of a grounding practice or artwork for the current, the current need, the very immediate needs of what’s going on.”

On her New York City gallery debut, ‘Black Love Blooms: New York Nook’ and how it’s filling the community’s needs in this moment:

Brianna Harlan. | PHOTO BY AMBER THIENEMAN.

BRIANNA HARLAN, 27, MULTIDISCIPLINARY ARTIST AND MFA STUDENT FROM RUSSELL, NOW OF NEW YORK CITY On being an “artist + organizer,” how intertwined those parts of her are and how her work became that way:

“So, one doesn’t really exist without the other for me. As an organizer, I think I’m always thinking of creative ways to activate community or to mobilize community, or to even just show up for community. So, definitely, my creative side comes out in that. But, maybe there’s a different tone, there’s a different priority, there’s a different way of moving. But, and then as an artist, I’m always trying to find ways to bring in that sense of purpose and urgency, I guess, in my work.” “ … Well, I think [it happened] just naturally, because I am interested in both and I do both. I can’t really turn one or the other off. So, yeah, I think it’s just the way that I think, it’s the way that I move, it’s the way that I operate. It’s what my values are. And so, yeah, I just started filling needs and responding to things in my art practice as well. And also I wasn’t super interested in drawing or painting as, like, my purpose. Like, I enjoyed doing those

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LEOWEEKLY.COM // SEPTEMBER 16, 2020

“ … So the exhibit is kind of testing some pop-up space elements for me, because I plan to hopefully do some outdoor pop-ups, that people can run flowers from that space and also invite people back to that space in order to share in more love and in some community. So, yeah, there’s some archival material that shows past — kind of the progression of the project and what it is now. There are free things around the room for Black people, like the love notes and roses. And also some free lavender for everyone who visits just for a little peace and healing all the way around. There’s stories from past interactions that I’ve done. There’s some art objects, art pieces, which is, you know, these hands that are coming out of the wall holding kindness, love, flowers; actual plants that are growing; there’s a wall to show some gratitude for Black people to Black people; video. So, it’s like part record, active living record, and also, part, kind of like, built environment. It’s full of space; it’s full of Black love. There’s a street sign and a graffitied magazine box. So just building this environment out, like, that this a space of just gratitude for Blackness in the project and how that’s living and working right now.” “ … So, the need that I see it meeting is a really essential and crucial one that I think often gets left out. And that’s for, in movements of resistance, there has to be a zero labor space for people to just be appreciated. Because we’re fighting just for the idea, just for the truth that Black lives matter. And to constantly be on that type of alert, to constantly be on that type of stress and trigger is carrying a trauma that often there aren’t spaces to unpack it, and even when there are, there’s labor to be done. Like, ‘oh, come to this healing space, and we’ll discuss how we’re feeling, and we will unpack some of this stuff that we’re feeling.’

But sometimes people just need to just be, and they need to feel good. And they need to not have anything asked of them; they need to receive good feeling, good energy, love, kindness, appreciation. And so that’s what I feel like this is doing, to remind us that not all of this has to be a struggle, not all of it is labor at all, even the healing work. And it doesn’t even have to

be in spite of, like, ‘oh, despite everything that’s going on, we can still feel joy.’ No, like, we’re just blooming because, ‘cus we’re great. We’re just being loved because we’re great. Just ‘cus we are. Because we’re people, and because we’re here. And so, that’s really important to me, and that’s, I’m also happy because this project started before kind of this uprising and the pandemic, because that further proves and cements to me that this should be something that should be always.”

On being a Black artist in Louisville’s art scene: “So, being a Black person in the Louisville arts scene is, it’s like, you have to create doorways; they don’t exist. And so you have to be extra creative, you have to be extra purposeful, you have to be a big self-advocate. You have to be, you have to do all of it yourself. It’s like, not just that you have to work to prove that you should be able to knock on the door, or walk through the door, or receive the opportunity, you have to create the entire ecosystem of opportunity for yourself. And then you also have to show that you have the skills, that your work should be supported. You have to navigate these old systems of power and money that typically just use your voice for tokenism or to feel good about the work that they are doing, and not necessarily to really amplify your work for what it is. Which is very frustrating.

Especially when, as creatives, we’re putting in everything, like literally everything we have — making sacrifices to do it the way that we’re doing it. And then it’s just kind of watered down or misused, misappropriated. So, yeah, that said, even the opportunity for your work to grow doesn’t really exist unless you make it, and even then, there’s like a, there’s a cap. So, you’ll see a lot of Black creatives moving outside of Louisville, if not just physically, just to do work.

Because in other places, there are more opportunities for sure. And it’s not just that Louisville’s small. That’s not it. Because, I think with the type of, I think that there’s definitely a lot of people that want to see the arts scene grow that have put money into it, that have put time into it. But then you have the same power players making the same decision from the same, old perspectives. And then we wonder why it doesn’t grow. Well, it’s not growing because it’s not being allowed to. The people that are actually doing the work and giving life to the scene are not being allowed to have any type of, to really do the work with autonomy and direct it and see it amplified in the ways that they need.

So, yeah, that’s a really big question. But, it’s difficult I guess.”

On her campaign to make the Louisville arts scene more equitable:

“It’s going well, really well. I’m a little late getting stuff out, because I have a life and no one’s paying me to do this work, right? And I’m trying to remember, trying to remember that and being mindful of the sacrifices that I’m making. But, it is going very well. Qualitative analysis wrapped up, and I’m actually going to be writing up the list of basic results, really all the themes and trends that came out of the report probably within the next week, and then I’ll invite people for a Zoom call to go over those things, a massive community Zoom call to go over those things. And then, from there, we’ll make some demands.”

Detail from ‘Ancestral Offerings: We Been Bloomin’ by Brianna Harlan.

LEOWEEKLY.COM // SEPTEMBER 16, 2020

15

Thomas English.

THOMAS ENGLISH, 63, MURALIST FROM PORTLAND On his artistic background (including his past protest-related art):

“I used to draw in school, elementary school. I started out painting murals back in 1978 or ’79. What got me into it was, I blame two, old mural artists, Billy Matthews and Muhammad Ali’s daddy, Cassius Clay Sr. They both were sign painters and artists. And at that time I was a kid, they painted this big picture on this big wall of this big building, and I told my mom, ‘Wow, we never got to do nothing like that.’” And 30 years later, I wound up painting that. So, I’ve been a mural artist; I got into cartoon animation, was led into TV production and doing some TV shows for the youth. And I mentor youth. I still paint murals. I was out painting a mural down in Saint Petersburg, Florida, when they had two riots down there, back in 1999, 1998. No, it was 1997, when they had two riots, back to back riots down there. And that calmed the neighborhood down, and the city of Saint Petersburg.”

‘Take A Knee Bridge.’ | PHOTO BY KATHRYN HARRINGTON.

like kids, kids that were murdered, just like Tamir Rice and Trayvon Martin. You can’t forget these kids, can’t forget this.”

On why he included children in the mural and invited children to contribute to it:

“Well it lets them know what protest is about and how you can protest also and know the meaning of protesting. Just ‘cus it’s legal, it doesn’t mean that it’s right. And a lot of the ‘I started with Colin Kaepernick, taking On how the Take a Knee bridge projlegal is not right. A lot of the legal is evil. And ect got started (and how it’s a form of like I said, it gives them a taste of standing up a knee. And then once I heard about protest): for what’s right. Because the little kids, the “I started with Colin Kaepernick, taking little bitty kids, when they come through, they Breonna Taylor and what was going on a knee. And then once I heard about Breonna stop and respond to the little bitty paintings here, and I wasn’t in a position to go out Taylor and what was going on here, and I of little children out there. The little bitty kids wasn’t in a position to go out and physically and physically protest, but I’m still a pro- don’t know Colin Kaepernick and, you know protest — but I’m still a protester, and this is a what I’m saying, Jackie Robinson and Martin tester. And this is a way to protest.’ way to protest. And inspire, influence, educate Luther King and such and such. But they do and motivate through my art work.” recognize the little paintings of them, of the little kids. So kids listen to kids. So, it’s a On how he chose who to depict in the mural: hands on experience of getting an understanding of leadership.”

“Well, it was the people [who] come by. Because it started out with, there was, I got a photo of a guy, a firsthand Colin Kaepernick, a dude who looked like Colin Kaepernick come On why art can be more effective for protest than words: by and took a knee. And then people started pulling over. Then, they come in requesting, “It’s a continuous communication. When you ride past it, you’ll see it, it’ll remind you.” where Martin Luther King at? Can you put Mattie Jones up there? And the mothers come by, with photos of their sons that’s been killed. And they tell you about or remind you of guys,

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LEOWEEKLY.COM // SEPTEMBER 16, 2020

Kenyatta Bosman.

KENYATTA BOSMAN, 26, PHOTOGRAPHER, MULTIMEDIA ARTIST AND BFA STUDENT IN OLD LOUISVILLE On how the Black Lives Matter movement influences their art — and turned them into a protest photographer:

“I’ve been taken some narrative classes and some film study class, and it just really has me in the energy of documentation. So, when the protests did start, the first thing that I did, you know, I’m like, I am a photographer, you know, this is what I do is capture moments. So I did a lot of live-streaming, and I also take photos in sequence of the protests and the marches that are going on.” “ … But, one of the photos that I did take, I shot it during a, it was for a music video called ‘BLM’ by Bblasian. They are a very, very awesome and up-and-coming artist here in Louisville. And there was a shot that stuck out to me, and the curator at the Quappi [Projects] selected it to be shown. And so I’m like yes, I took this, and it really, really just stood out. It is a Black boy riding a bike with, he has a nice fro going on, and then he has a Black hoodie around his shoulders and it says ‘KING.’ But, it was very, very strong and well, it didn’t take me too long to think it out, but once they came into my queue, in my eye, I just started capturing their photo. We kind of made eye contact for a second. And those are the very, very — those are the photos that I love to take is when it is in the heat of the moment, and there is that one person out of the crowd that notices you and makes eye contact with your lens. And it composed just an amazing photo, and I’m so excited to show it.

I want to say it will be shown this October or November at the Quappi. The show will be called ‘We All Declare for Liberty,’ and the showcase will be about 2020 and the future of American citizenship. And so I’m super excited

‘Down on my Knees.’ Frankfort, 2020. | PHOTO BY KENYATTA BOSMAN.

LEOWEEKLY.COM // SEPTEMBER 16, 2020

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for this.”

On what they want people to get out of their photos of the protests:

“I would like people to get emotional off of them. I would like to — I want them to connect to the photo and maybe feel as if they’re there in that moment or maybe as if they know someone that is there. I want them to be uncomfortable, because in a lot of these moments, I am very, very uncomfortable; I don’t feel safe. So that’s what I want to bring out of these photos. I want you to connect with them in a way that makes you feel uncomfortable, to realize there is change that needs to be brought, that should have happened a long time ago.

Because a lot of companies and foundations and fundraisers, they’re doing things now, and it’s like, you should have been doing these things a long time ago. Granted, we appreciate that you’re picking up for the slack, but you should have been doing these things a long time ago.”

Taylor and George Floyd, etc., etc., don’t do that. ’Cus right now, that is taking up space.

Which, you know, it’s already done. It’s taken up enough space. So, stop and let the BIPoC people do that work. But, you can, there’s still things that you can do as far as protest art and doing art intersectionally in groups and being coordinated by BIPoC people and everyone working on that together. That is fine; that is OK; that is awesome. Because, what you’re doing is you’re getting the input and the feedback, ‘We are non-BIPoC people, but we are getting the inspiration, the design and what they want to be presented,’ and not so much stepping in and being like, ‘Here, this is what I have and this is my idea.’ That’s what we don’t want. So, a lot of time that’s projected, and a lot of people are doing murals of Black people, and they’re getting recognition. And that is a very, very — like I said, that is exhausting, and we don’t want to see it. Because, if there is Black murals of Black people, we want it to be done by BIPoC people. So, it’s actually us and perceived by us.”

On not wanting to be the ‘token person’:

“I have been getting called and asked to do a lot of things. Which yes, I do want to do these things, but it’s like, also am I being a token person for your company? Kind of like, ‘Oh, well, we did this for a BIPoC [Black, indigenous, people of color] person, a BIPoC queer person.’ ’Cus that’s also a thing. I am Black, and then I’m also queer, so it’s like a double standard. ‘Cus sometimes I’m not always accepted in the queer community because I am Black, and then sometimes I’m not accepted in the Black community because I am queer.

So, it’s a big struggle. And when being called to do some of these things, I am amped up for it. But, I don’t want to be that token person, nor do I want to feel rushed. Because a lot of, they’re just looking for like, ‘Oh, well, can you do this pretty quick? Like, it won’t take long.’ And, [laughs], yeah, it just gets exhausting. It’s been exhausting. But, I’m like, that’s my life, period, and that’s something that I can’t get away from. ‘Cus I always have to get up and show up, ‘cus a lot of times, I’m the only Black person in the room. So, I’m like, I have to speak for me and for us, because I’m not going to let anyone else take the room to do so.”

On promoting intersectionality in their work as a Black, queer, nonbinary person:

“So, I work for, I’m a photojournalist for Queer Kentucky, and that has been my goal since the Black Lives Matter movement, is to expose racial injustice to the white, queer community. And especially cis people. Because if you’re going to say Black Lives Matter, then you need to be saying Black Trans Lives Matter, ‘So, I work for, I’m a photoBlack Nonbinary Lives Matter and Black Queer journalist for Queer Kentucky, Lives Matter, period.

Because, like I said, you and that has been my goal know, we’re not all free since the Black Lives Matter until we are all free.” “ … And when I came movement, is to expose racial to Queer Kentucky as a photojournalist, I kind of injustice to the white, queer let it be known, ‘Hey, a community.’ lot of the work that I’m going to be doing is going to be Black people and people of color.’ Because there is a lot of white, cis space that is taken up in the queer community with a lot of ignorance that Pride and Pride period revolves around a Black trans woman. The first Pride was a riot. So, my work that I do, I’m uplifting BIPoC voices … and also queer, BIPoC voices. ‘Cus they’re silenced the most, especially the BIPoC trans people. There are a lot of cases out here, they’re not even reported. And, I want to say in ‘Paris is Burning,’ there was a … trans woman who was choked and just put under a bed. And that is very, very — it’s disturbing when you hear these things and you get to see them in a documentary of, a very beautiful and kind of like a butterfly — and to hear that something so gross happened to them, yeah, it’s very disturbing. So, I really want to educate people and get intersectionality out to the world. I think that is very, very important: intersectionality and education, period.”

On how white people should be making protest art:

“If you’re not a BIPoC artist, and you are making art of Black people, as far as Breonna

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LEOWEEKLY.COM // SEPTEMBER 16, 2020

Jon Cherry. | SELFPORTRAIT.

JON CHERRY, 31, MULTI-SPECIALTY PROFESSIONAL PHOTOGRAPHER IN LOUISVILLE On how frequently he incorporated activism into his art before the Justice for Breonna protests: “Not very often actually … I guess I used my art purely for commercial purposes before the movement began, because I didn’t find room for it there; I found it in other avenues of my life.”

On how he got started taking photos of the protests:

“Well, the very first night I got a text message from my best friend, who said, ‘I heard seven people were shot downtown. Everybody’s protesting. There’s tear gas and all that other stuff. Would you like to come down with me?’ And I said, ‘I don’t know, man. Let me give it some thought.’ And he said, ‘Well, I’m on your porch, so come outside.’

So we got ready to leave, and we were just going to go down and see what’s happening and just kind of get our own eyes on it. He told me to grab my camera. Something felt kind of oddly voyeuristic about bringing it, but he assured me that it was kind of my job to record moments like that. And then that’s when it started. And the next 32 consecutive days after that I went down and got photos.”

On what he hopes people learn about the protests from his photos:

“Well, there’s a level of humanism that I need them to see in these images. Because there’s a lot of disinformation that’s being spread just about the protesters, who they are as people, what they’re out there for, what they even look like. And, so to be able to tether the viewer between perfect strangers and help them kind of understand these moments more than they might get from reading a news article or even watching a livestreamer or watching a video of whatever’s happening. I think that’s probably the most important thing to me is exposing humanity and really honoring those moments that are happening, and trying not to be voyeuristic in any way.”

On why he switched from posting photos in black and white to posting in color:

“Well, one of the reasons that I posted mostly in black and white is that I didn’t feel like color added to the story, it didn’t add to what was happening in the images at all. But slowly as I — and this is more of a recent discovery — but slowly, as I realized that if I manipulate the colors in a certain way, that I can add to the story in a way that is mine. And that’s when I made the switch. And I noticed that everybody else was posting black and white, too.

Once my work started blowing up in Louisville, many other photographers started using a very, very similar black, gray and white tonality. And so I switched over to color. Now everybody’s switching over to color again as well. I’m not saying that it’s related, but it feels like it.

On what direction he sees his art taking if the regular protests stop:

“I don’t think it’s going anywhere, and my art has changed from the daily protests to doing more of the backend logistics, art installations, direct actions that are more related to supporting the community. And so if that is going to be my role within the movement, is to no longer take photos of the square once the square has been disbanded or once the occupation has ended, then that’s fine.”

PHOTO BY JON CHERRY. LEOWEEKLY.COM // SEPTEMBER 16, 2020

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Tyler Abell.

TYLER ABELL, 29, MULTIDISCIPLINARY ARTIST IN CRESCENT HILL On PeaceState, a collective he’s a part of:

“It’s a collection of artists who wanted to respond to social injustice, mainly to bring more attention to BIPoC people and LGBTQ. Our art is kind of driven around just, really, it’s art activism. So, our basic mission is, we’re an intersectional art activism collective. Our mission is to harness the power of artwork to disrupt systematic oppression. Right now we’re focused on confronting police brutality and amplifying the voices of Black, indigenous, people of color.”

On how art can help ‘disrupt systematic oppression’:

“Well, I think the most obvious way is to get people to think and realize that their voices can be heard, whether that is through getting involved in the community and then, I mean, using art just gets people to think a little differently. Because you can express a lot of different things through art. And also it’s physical, and when someone sees something physical, they react to it. ‘Cus, maybe it’s hard for people to understand that people of color are held down by our justice system a little bit differently than other people. So, if you create a piece of art that can represent that, it puts it kind of right there in their face.”

On his role in art activism as a white person:

“I would say that, I don’t want to, I try not to bring attention to myself other than just using my ability to organize and provide a platform for other people to be highlighted. But it’s not about the white person, you know. That’s why on PeaceState, I’m not focused on at all. I started PeaceState, but I’m not focused on… [My role is] to organize events and to get the art collection together, get the event spaces together and then to assemble the show and to promote the show… I have a few art installations in it, but they’re under ‘anonymous,’ because I just didn’t want my name out there.”

On how he balances art activism with his web design/architecture studio, 7000rpm.life, and why he does it: “Well, I actually took some time off from working, like pretty much the whole month of May and June to focus on getting PeaceState together and to create art. And then, I’ve just been balancing my schedule from working on my own — because I’m a freelancer, so I can kind of create my own schedule — to creating art, helping out at downtown Injustice

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LEOWEEKLY.COM // SEPTEMBER 16, 2020

‘Death of a Nation.’ | BY TYLER ABELL.

Square [Jefferson Square Park], going to protests and just creating art… I mean, I think it’s important to try and create a world that we can all live in. It seems like it’s something more meaningful than just working in an office, where if there’s something happening in our society that needs attention, that we need to address it, and we need to think about it, and we need to care. It takes a lot of energy, though, to care and to push your attention towards that.

But, I guess I’m willing to give forth the energy and make some sacrifices, too.”

On what’s next in art activism for him:

“Well, actually, I’m working with [The Mammoth curator] Aron [Conoway] on a resource website. It’s basically a website for all events that are occurring in Louisville, an education center with papers and articles from local news outlets. And it’s basically just a hub for everything related to social justice that’s happening here in Louisville.” [And, he’s working with a group of Black artists, the Roots 101 African-American Museum and teacher Matthew Kaufmann to paint a mural downtown of the protest and prominent, Black leaders.] •

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PHOTO ESSAY

CYCLISTS RODE TO BREONNA TAYLOR’S APARTMENT, ‘LAY THEIR EYES ON THE TRUTH’

By Kathryn Harrington | leo@leoweekly.com DOZENS OF CYCLISTS took to the streets Sunday to demand justice for Breonna Taylor during the Say Her Name Bike Ride.

The ride began at Jefferson Square Park, where Shameka Sells-Moore spoke to the crowd about her daughter Shanaira Selden. Selden went missing last year in October and her body was found a week later in the Ohio River. At the time of her disappearance, police had said no foul play was suspected, The Courier Journal reported. Sells-Moore said police initially suspected her death was a suicide, but she wants them to investigate further.

“They made it up to make the pieces fit. So again I challenged it,” she told the crowd, explaining that: “The cause of death has been changed to ‘undetermined.’ ... But there’s still been no investigation.”

“Shanaira is just a small part of everything that is going wrong with our system. They don’t care about our brown girls, they don’t. They didn’t care about my brown girl, I did.” Sells-Moore said. “It is something that I have to deal with every morning when I wake up, every hour of the day I think about my daughter, and it’s really hard to grieve when you can’t even get justice. I appreciate rides like this, I appreciate everyone that brings everything to surface. I appreciate the ones that understand that this is just not right.”

One of the organizers of the ride, Nicole Williams, hopes to bring the demand for justice to other areas of Louisville. “This was a different way for us to get out and protest and take this to neighborhoods that are a little further away,” Williams said.

The cyclists left Jefferson Square Park as other riders joined for the rest of the ride to Breonna Taylor’s apartment. Cyclists were then invited to ride to the waterfront for refreshments as well as visits with therapists if they needed one.

At Breonna’s apartment on Springfield Drive, flowers, candles and signs adorn the patio. Several cyclists added items to the memorial.

Said Williams: “I want people to know what happened and where it happened … Seeing the Square and physically being there is an amazing feeling. I’m so happy that Louisville created a space where Breonna Taylor’s mother can go and just sit in peace and be fed and be nurtured and listen to music. The Square is amazing — that’s why every ride starts at the square. But you have to see this too. This is tragic, this is heartbreaking, but this is real, and this is why we’re here because this keeps happening.”

“Hopefully today people can come to this place where it happened and lay their eyes on the truth. See these bullet holes for yourself,” she said. •

Several participants in the bike ride placed a hand on the outside wall of Breonna Taylor’s apartment. Bullet holes remain from the night she was killed.

The dozens of cyclists reached Breonna Taylor’s home on Springfield Drive after starting at Jefferson Square Park. | PHOTOS BY KATHRYN HARRINGTON.

One of the organizers of the Say Her Name bike ride, Nicole Williams, looked toward Taylor’s apartment as she spoke to the cyclists who rode from Jefferson Square Park to the apartment complex on Springfield Drive.

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LEOWEEKLY.COM // SEPTEMBER 16, 2020

PHOTO ESSAY

The cyclists held up their fists and chanted briefly as they entered the apartment complex where Breonna Taylor was killed by Louisville police in March.

Dozens of cyclists gathered in Jefferson Square Park for the Say Her Name bike ride to Breonna Taylor’s apartment on Sunday.

A protester hugged Shameka Sells-Moore in Jefferson Square Park on Sunday after she spoke about the death of her daughter Shanaira Selden.

Signs, flowers and candles have been placed outside the apartment where Breonna Taylor was killed in March by Louisville police.

LEOWEEKLY.COM // SEPTEMBER 16, 2020

23

PHOTO ESSAY

Participants in the ride arrived at Breonna Taylor’s apartment where she was killed by police in March.

Dozens of cyclists left Jefferson Square Park to the ride to Breonna Taylor’s apartment.

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LEOWEEKLY.COM // SEPTEMBER 16, 2020

STAFF PICKS THURSDAY, SEPT. 17

Give For Good Carnival

Change Today, Change Tomorrow | 1031 E. Washington St. | Search Facebook Donations accepted | Noon-5 p.m.

Once a year, the Community FounDONATE dation of Louisville encourages individuals and groups to donate to their favorite nonprofits as part of Give for Good Louisville. To celebrate, one nonprofit that you can contribute to — Change Today, Change Tomorrow — is showing why they deserve your money with a carnival for local families. Activities include a pop-up play; prizes; backpacks with school supplies; food (including desserts from Hip Hop Sweet Shop); and lessons on making organic salads, sage bundling and youth entrepreneurship. CTCT serves Louisville’s Black community. You can find a list of other nonprofits to give to at giveforgoodlouisville.org. —LEO

FRIDAY, SEPT. 18

Drive Thru Balloon Glow

Indiana Wesleyan University - Louisville Education and Conference Center 1500 Alliant Ave. | Search Facebook | $10 | 6-10 p.m.

The Jeffersontown Gaslight Festival wraps up its COVID-19-truncated schedule of festivities with the brilliant glow of hot air balloons inflating. A half-mile DRIVE-THRU FUN drive among these illuminating works of art provides a wonderful event to enjoy while staying safe and healthy in your own car. Balloons will begin inflating around 7:15 p.m., with twilight officially at 7:45 p.m.

Cars will congregate at Indiana Wesleyan campus and be released in line from there.

—Aaron Yarmuth

FRIDAY, SEPT. 18

Virtual After Hours At The Speed

Online | speedmuseum.org/events | Free | 5:30-7 p.m.

After Hours at the Speed is back — unfortunately, we still can’t gather at the SPEED museum for a late-night party.

But, the virtual version is just as creative as the in-person one. Gather materials for a DIY silkscreen demonstration and drag makeup tutorial, and prepare to review the Speed’s Andy Warhol exhibit from a queer lens with a tour led by curator José Diaz and Jongwoo Kim of Carnegie Mellon University. Watch on Facebook Live or YouTube. —LEO

After Hours at The Speed will feature a Marilyn Monroe-inspired Drag makeup tutorial and performance from Nashville’s FEMNASTY777.

SATURDAY, SEPT. 19

Plant 5K Run & Walk

100 West Riverside Drive, Jeffersonville | louisvillegrows.org/events $30 | 9-11 a.m.

Runners and walkers owe a lot to trees. During Louisville’s hot summers, tree cover can make WALK OR RUN all the difference between powering through or giving up and returning home. So, give back to the trees with this inaugural 5K that benefits Louisville Grows and it’s effort to increase the area’s tree canopy (and cool us down). Your $30 registration also nets you a collapsible, reusable cup, and overall winners will receive a free professional tree planting on their property or on their behalf. Plus, in keeping with Louisville Grows’ sustainable mission, participant awards will be made out of renewable resources by local artists; composting, recycling and waste containers will be provided; and old shoe donations will be accepted on-site for recycling. —Danielle Grady

SATURDAY, SEPT. 19

Radio Arcane

YouTube | radio-arcane.com | Free | 8-10 p.m.

Get spooky with some dark, eclectic tunes from Scary Black and Vyva Melinkolya of the Radio Arcane collective. The two acts will play live from Art Sanctuary and SPOOKY stream their haunting melodies through YouTube. Scary Black is inspired by ‘80s alternative and Vyva Melinkolya makes “aggresively etheral” music. —LEO

These balloons were glowing at Bernheim Arboretum and Research Forest in last summer. | PHOTO BY NIK VECHERY. LEOWEEKLY.COM // SEPTEMBER 16, 2020

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STAFF PICKS

SATURDAY, SEPT. 19

THROUGH OCT. 17

Apocalypse Brew Works 1612 Mellwood Ave. | Search Facebook No cover | 7-10:15 p.m.

PYRO Gallery | 1006 E. Washington St. | pyrogallery.com | Free

Frights, Flights And Bites #2 ‘The Blob’

‘#WomenStrongerTogether’

Debra Lott is well known for her large paintings of women. They’re not portraits but on the multitude of experiences related to being female. Her new EMPOWERMENT body of work is a follow-up to her 2018 series that focused on the #MeToo movement. “This series of paintings illustrates the beauty, strength and resiliency of women while expressing empowerment and perseverance by uniting together,” she said. Lott asked seven guest artists to show with her, all using art to stand together in support of women: Britany Baker, Heather Brunetti, Sandra Charles, Bob Lockhart, Mike McCarthy, Chip Norton and Karen Terhune. —Jo Anne Triplett

Some today may laugh at the bubble gum monster from MOVIE NIGHT outer space, but that bastard was scary as hell back in the day.

Laugh or scream at it, “The Blob” — the 1958 version — will be showing in the parking lot beer garden of Apocalypse Brew Works. Before the movie, from 8 to 8:30, try your hand at classic horror movie trivia, “with an awesome Grand Prize” promised by organizers. Also, supplement your beer with The Burger Joint food truck, which will be slinging burgers, even veggie burgers. The movie is from 8:45 to 10:15 p.m. —Aaron Yarmuth

SUNDAY, SEPT. 20

Botanical Gardens Fun

Waterfront Botanical Gardens | 1435 Frankfort Ave. | Search Facebook Free ($10 suggested donation) | 8 a.m.-2 p.m., 2-5 p.m.

Louisville Visual Art’s Plein Air Paint Out

In art, the phrase “plein air” refers to painting or drawing outdoors to capture the natural light. Being outdoors is one of the few sanctioned activities we can do durNATURE ing the pandemic, so an event like this, sponsored by Louisville Visual Art, fits in perfectly with social distancing. The artists, set up at least 20 feet apart from each other, will have from 8 a.m. until the fair opens at 2 p.m. to create their art. Awards will be handled out at 3 p.m. The Paint Out is part of the family-friendly reGeneration Fair with booths on the environment, entertainment and food. Rain or shine. Masks are required.

—Jo Anne Triplett

ReGeneration Fair

Take the family out to the new Waterfront Botanical Gardens for some fresh air, flora and fun at the annual environmental fair. Thematic arts and crafts include creating paper flowers, plant printing and gourd painting (just in time for Jack-o’-lantern season). Cave Hill Honey will be on-site to discuss beekeeping, Steam Exchange will be doing T-shirt printing, and The Food Literacy Project will be giving away plant seedlings. There’s much more to enjoy at this new gem of a Louisville attraction.

Special attention and efforts have been made to ensure health safety, including mask requirements for all staff, vendors and visitors.

—Aaron Yarmuth Art from a previous Plein Air Paint Out.

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LEOWEEKLY.COM // SEPTEMBER 16, 2020

‘Stronger Together’ by Debra Lott. Oil on canvas.

SATURDAY, SEPT. 19 – OCT. 19

Roots101 Presents, ‘Behind The Roses’ Roots101: African American Museum | 819 W. Main St. Search Facebook | Free (donations accepted) | 10 a.m.-6 p.m.

Lexington artist Jason Dafri Thompson presents ART the exhibit, “Behind The Roses,” at Roots101 African American Museum. The exhibit focuses on the rich history of the African American horsemen seldom seen or recognized behind the celebrated horses and jockeys of the racing industry. “The trainers, the farriers, the groomers, these were men that just lived extraordinary and wonderful lives,” he said of the exhibit, last winter on “Good Day Kentucky,” ABC36 in Lexington. “And through illustration, though my pieces, you’re going to be able to kind of get a glimpse of behind the roses, who these men were behind the horses.” —Aaron Yarmuth

By Lexington artist Jason Dafri Thompson.

IMAGE COURTESY OF ROOTS101: AFRICAN AMERICAN MUSEUM.

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You’re not likely to run out of injera with the abundant supply of extras that Queen of Sheba provides.

By Robin Garr | LouisvilleHotBytes.com The veggie combination at Queen of Sheba tops injera with two colors of lentil misir wot, Atakilt and Gomen wot. | PHOTOS BY ROBIN GARR.

IF YOU LIKE TO EAT Ethiopian food the traditional way, you’ll eat with your hands, tearing off pieces of tangy, tan injera flatbread and using it to grab morsels from the common plate while your friends are doing the same.

Unfortunately, the pandemic has put an end to that practice at Queen of Sheba restaurant for now. Dine-in service is now on individual plates only, the popular Ethiopian restaurant tells us on its online ordering page. Following standard protocols, customers must wear face masks when away from the table, and everyone is expected to practice social distancing.

But there’s an easy workaround if you want to eat with your fingers: Takeout is available by ordering online or by phone, and you can arrange delivery via online delivery services. Once you’ve got your Ethiopian repast home, you’re welcome to dig in, and no one will judge you.

“We want to assure our customers that we are taking every precaution per health department guidelines to protect the spread of COVID-19 to our customers and employees by sanitizing all contact surfaces regularly and offering fast minimum contact transactions while keeping social distancing,” the restaurant assures us. “We have always provided our customers hand sanitizers at our door and tables for your convenience and protection. Let’s all be safe!”

That makes sense to me. I’m still resisting dining in anywhere until there’s a vaccine that works. But takeout? Yes, please!

Queen of Sheba isn’t offering curbside pickup, but takeout orders are scheduled, and it’s easy to approach the pickup area without violating social distancing.

Queen of Sheba has been around for 16 years, operating briefly in a Frankfort Avenue storefront before moving in across from Bowman Field — once the home of the late, lamented Mazzoni’s — in 2008.

The menu hasn’t changed much over the years.

It starts with 10 appetizers and salads, from $3 (for seneg karia, fresh jalapeños stuffed with an onion-tomato dressing) to $7.50 (for a four-item sampler).

Entrées are categorized by Ethiopian food style, including five wots (meat stews), six tips (sauteed chicken, beef, lamb or fish) and four Queen’s Specialty items. Vegetarian dishes are popular in Ethiopia, where the Orthodox Church requires abstinence from meat on Wednesdays and Fridays, and Queen of Sheba steps up with eight, meatless main dishes. Four combination plates wrap up the bill of fare and top out the menu at $14.95 (for a tips and vegetable combination with injera or rice, salad and red-lentil kik wot).

There’s also a short list of wines and beers, including the sweet Ethiopian honey

An excellent vinaigrette elevates Queen of Sheba’s simple iceberg-lettuce salads. We also got a bonus tub of spicy kik wot, red-lintil stew with fiery berbere seasoning.

LEOWEEKLY.COM // SEPTEMBER 16, 2020

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FOOD & DRINK

LISTEN NOW

The kosta wrap appetizer at Queen of Sheba fills rolls of injera with sauteed fresh spinach, onions, garlic, and house-made aybe (house-made cottage cheese).

A NEW PODCAST FROM

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28

LEOWEEKLY.COM // SEPTEMBER 16, 2020

Ozzie

wine called Sheba Taj and a choice of three desserts (all $4).

We chose combination plates so we could try more dishes and drove away happy with a meat and vegetable combo ($13.95), vegetarian combination ($10.95) and an appetizer, a kosta wrap ($4) neatly packed in white plastic-foam boxes and tubs.

Four kosta wraps ($4) consisted of injera rolled and stuffed with a cool and refreshing mixture of fresh spinach lightly sautéed with chopped onions and garlic and mixed with crumbled Ethiopan aybe (house-made cottage cheese).

A meat and vegetable combination ($13.95) was built on a large round of injera pressed into a three-compartment box, then filled with portions of four items: Doro wot, alicha sega wot, gomen wot and atakilt, with the edges of the injera folded over the top.

Doro wot is a spicy chicken stew of chicken pieces slowly cooked in onions, garlic and ginger with berbere, the iconic Ethiopian spice made with spicy hot peppers, cinnamon and other spices. The longsimmered chicken drumstick was tender without being squishy and succulent.

Alicha sega wot is a mild stew of tender beef slices, potatoes and onions with garlic, ginger and turmeric. It reminded us of oldfashioned hash but with Ethiopian flavors.

If I have to eat my greens, I wouldn’t mind them being gomen wot. Cut-up collard greens were perfectly prepared, tender but not overcooked, simmered with onions and

garlic.

Atakilt is another healthy and delicious vegetable dish: Sliced cabbage, onions and carrots were cooked just right, tender and almost creamy but not boiled to death in a light tomato sauce that brought together all the flavors.

A vegetarian combination dinner ($10.95) was built on injera in the same way.

It also bore portions of atakilt and gomen wot as well as two servings of lentil stew.

Misir wot was made of yellow lentils simmered in onions, ginger and garlic with turmeric and aromatic herbs. Kik wot is green lentils similarly prepared but with fiery red berbere sauce in place of the turmeric.

American-style salads served alongside both combo plates were cool and refreshing, with crisp, cool iceberg lettuce torn, not cut, into bite-size pieces. It was tossed with tomato slices and thinly sliced red onion, all dressed with a simple but tasty vinaigrette.

The kitchen seemed to assume that we would take advantage of dining at home to pitch in, Ethiopian-style: An extra box contained six extra rolls or injera, more than we knew what to do with.

An abundant Ethiopian dinner for two came to just $30.63, plus a 20% tip. •

QUEEN OF SHEBA

2804 Taylorsville Road 459-6301 queenofshebalouisville.com

FOOD & DRINK

PAIRINGS... WHAT TO EAT AND DRINK TOGETHER

WHEN YOU WANT TO DRINK BOURBON FROM APPETIZERS TO ENTREES TO DESSERT

By Susan Reigler | leo@leoweekly.com NATIONAL BOURBON Heritage Month is upon us, which presents a perfect opportunity to highlight the great variety of flavors in bourbons. Sure, they almost all exhibit the basic profile of caramel or vanilla or some combination thereof that sets bourbon apart from other whiskey styles. But there are many embellishments that result in bourbons being distinctly different from one another.

And what better way to highlight the variety of bourbons than by pairing different bourbons with appropriate bites to intensify the flavors in both? Here’s a Bourbon Heritage Month tasting menu:

APPETIZER

Sherry Hurley the proprietor/chef at Farm to Fork Catering & Café in Louisville’s Portland neighborhood has created a variety of snacks that are perfect for cocktail hour.

Her house-made spreads included pimento cheese, Benedictine and a refreshingly different black-eyed pea hummus. Absolutely perfect with bourbon is her Bourbon Pecan Party Mix, a riff on Chex Mix that’s definitely addictive. Tiny pretzels, fat pecans, cereal squares and a medley of other nibbles have been coated with a sweet bourboninfused glaze and baked for extra crispiness.

Because it is itself a “party mix” of mashbills and yeast strain, Four Roses bourbon is the perfect sip to pair with the munchies. The distillery uses two different mashbills for making its bourbons, one that is 75% corn and 20% rye and a second with 60% corn and 35% rye. Five different yeast strains each produce distinctive aromatics — delicate fruit, light spice, rich (dark) fruit, floral and herbal. That makes for 10 possible recipes. Four Roses Single Barrel uses one of them. Small Batch has four recipes. Small Batch Select incorporates six. And the Four Roses 80 proof (formerly known as Yellow Label) uses all 10.

So, enjoy the 80 proof in an Old Fashioned garnished with an orange peel, paired with the party mix for a lovely light pairing.

ENTRÉES

Bourbon and pork are natural partners.

Try bourbon glazed pork chops sometime.

I’ve already written about pairing bour-

bon and country ham. Bourbon and pork barbecue go together especially well. Head to Mark’s Feed Store for some carryout ribs.

The smoky meat, with a good portion of chewy blackened bark should be accompanied with an appropriately smoky bourbon. I can recommend two.

Old Forester 1910 is pretty easy to find, being one of the expressions in Old Forester’s Whiskey Row Series. It picked up notes of smoke for secondary aging in a very deeply charred barrel. Less easy to find on store shelves is another smoky bourbon, which comes from MB Roland, a small craft distiller in Pembroke, Kentucky that produces an impressive variety of whiskeys.

The distillery has a tiny building that you won’t find at other distilleries, a corn smokehouse. Think smokehouse for ham, only here the corn gets the treatment. It’s used in its Dark Fired Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey, resulting in a strong smokiness that is the American equivalent of a peaty Scotch, but considerably sweeter.

Tip: If you like to make your own baked beans, add a slug of this to the pot to infuse the classic barbecue side with extra smoke.

DESSERTS

Honestly, I do not have a big sweet tooth, though every once in a while, something light and fruity after dinner is just right.

And somehow, I always seem to have room for ice cream. The dessert that fulfills both of these aspects of my taste is one that is a seasonal, summer treat. If you are lucky, there will still be some pints of Graeter’s Peach Ice Cream nestled in the freezer at your local grocery. Peach-scented vanilla ice cream is loaded with slices of fresh peaches, all peeled and cut by hand by the Graeter’s team. I know I’m not the only fan of this flavor, since Graeter’s stores always sport a banner each July declaring “Peach Ice Cream is Here!”

And the peachy bourbon to pair with the ice cream? Elijah Craig. It has an interesting mash bill that uses more malted barley than rye. (Usually the malted barley makes up the smallest portion of the grain recipe.) It’s 78% corn, 12% malted barley and 10% rye.

A spoonful of the ice cream is guaranteed to create an explosion of the crème brulee

Farm to Fork Catering & Café ’s Bourbon Pecan Party Mix is the perfect pairing with Four Roses bourbon because it is itself a “party mix” of mashbills and yeast strain. | PHOTO BY SUSAN REIGLER.

and ripe peach notes so characteristic of Elijah Craig. There are many expressions of this bourbon from Heaven Hill with various proofs and age statements. The 94 proof is the most readily available and excellent in this pairing. But the distillery is also releasing a Toasted Barrel expression this month that adds some toasted brown sugar notes to the whiskey. The combination with the ice cream tastes like a cool peach cobbler.

NIGHTCAP

You may be wondering why I haven’t mentioned that classic combination, bourbon and chocolate. After all, the bourbon ball is a signature Kentucky sweet. Many bourbons have notes of chocolate in them, too, with a wide spectrum ranging from light milk to dark. I tend to gravitate to the dark side here and like to nibble on a square of Ghirardelli Intense Dark chocolate bar or have a Lindt Lindor dark chocolate truffle as a small treat.

As a nightcap, a finger of Old Grand-Dad

114 proof bourbon is just right with dark chocolate. It has strong orange peel notes that pair beautifully with the dark chocolate.

Add a few drops of water to amplify the fruit and savor.

But the ultimate bourbon and chocolate pairing can be found in the bourbon-infused chocolates from Art Eatables. Chocolatier Kelly Ramsey carefully matches chocolate varieties to specific bourbons in her silkysmooth truffles. The shop offers four-piece books of truffles made with whiskey from most of Kentucky’s distillers. But the best bet is to get one for the multi-bourbon sampler boxes and taste your way through bourbon country, with accompanying sips from Beam and Bulleit to Wild Turkey and Willett. • Susan Reigler is a whiskey author/educator. She has written: “Kentucky Bourbon Country,” “The Kentucky Bourbon Cocktail Book” and “The Bourbon Tasting Notebook.”

LEOWEEKLY.COM // SEPTEMBER 16, 2020

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91 ‘‘More of the ____’’ (1967 No. 1 album) 95 Weepy 1954 Patti Page hit 96 Haberdasher’s clasp 97 Of the ankle 100 Stunned, in a way 101 Walk heavily 102 Contemptible sort 103 Toothy smile 104 Jazz’s James 108 Condo, e.g.

109 Kaffiyeh wearer 110 Christmas-tree hanging 113 Just between us?

115 Family nickname

B S O N G A E R Y L S A W I W N I T

R E V I I V B A I L Z A N E H U I R S L

O P E S X E R T I R G O D A L E T W I S I E O L D L A D C O M W O K S E P L T C T O C H A U P O T T A E R S A L

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O W S E L N Y A B L E

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51 Greek H’s 52 Golfer Ernie 53 It ended on Nov. 11, 1918 56 Swell up 57 Laundry soap since 1908 58 ‘‘____, all ye faithful’’ 59 Classic fruity sodas 60 Occupied, with ‘‘in’’ 61 Accept as charged 68 ‘‘How sad!’’

69 Liquor levy, e.g.

70 Provoke 71 Surgical inserts 72 Painter José María ____ 73 Kind words 74 ‘‘Va ____’’ (Italian ‘‘All right’’) 75 Something to bookmark 76 Film director Jon 77 You, to Yves 78 ‘‘____ doctor, but ...’’

79 Trait of a clingy romantic partner 80 Lead singer of rock’s Yeah Yeah Yeahs (who uses just the initial of her last name) 81 Churchill’s trademark gesture 82 Author born Truman Streckfus Persons 87 Not much at all 88 Ballet attire 89 Pig in a poke or pigeon drop 90 ‘‘The Simpsons’’ grandpa

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1 Tower over the field 2 Sci-fi film with vehicles called ‘‘light cycles’’ 3 Loaded (with) 4 Prone to fidgeting 5 Some 1990s Toyotas 6 American fashion designer who once served as the creative director at Gucci and Yves Saint Laurent 7 ____ pro nobis 8 Mixed together 9 Gets one over on 10 Junkyard warning, maybe 11 Play back?

12 Rust and quartz 13 Equity valuation stat 14 Tiny bit of work 15 Vodka brand, informally 16 She gained fame from her leading role in ‘‘Fame’’ 17 Having the means 18 ____ Lofgren, guitarist for the E Street Band 28 Wolflike 32 Great two-pair poker hand 34 Once called 35 Spanish resort island 36 ‘‘Sure, I guess ...’’

37 Relating to egg cells 38 Actor who won a 2016 Presidential Medal of Freedom 39 Six-line verse 43 Wilson of ‘‘Meet the Parents’’ 46 Colloquial contraction 48 Stops up 49 Surreptitious

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1 Part of a backpack 6 Pyramids, often 11 Dutch requirements 16 Evan : Welsh :: ____ : Scottish 19 One of Chekhov’s ‘‘Three Sisters’’ 20 Hunter of myth 21 Bring to bear 22 Result, maybe, in brief 23 Many apartments in old warehouse districts 24 Japanese comics style 25 Labor Day baby, e.g.

26 Shape formed by an extended thumb and index fingers 27 Good person to believe in 29 Switz. neighbor 30 Writer Tarbell who took on Standard Oil 31 Pins are placed at the end of them 33 07 film 37 Some E.M.T. cases 40 Buying binges 41 Count in music 42 Logical start?

44 U preceder 45 Picked from a lineup, informally 46 Hurt 47 Proverbs 50 Like puppeteers, usually 53 Maven 54 Leafy crown material 55 Day competitor 62 Bailiwicks 63 Legal 64 Chief Chirpa and others, in sci-fi 65 Wastes away 66 ‘‘Fantasy’’ Grammy winner 67 Cool, in old slang 68 ‘‘The way things are currently going …’’

72 Muscle problem 74 Muscular 76 Grammy-winning country singer Black 77 Play combo of old 83 Mark ____, winner of the 1998 Masters 84 George Carlin was its first host, for short 85 State capital on the Colorado River 86 Subject of Newton’s first law of motion 88 Dealers do this 89 Have an in-tents experience?

92 QB’s pass: Abbr.

93 ‘‘____ to My Socks,’’ Pablo Neruda poem

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Across

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No. 0920

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N E E D I N E S S

BY DAVID KWONG / EDITED BY WILL SHORTZ

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COULD YOU REPEAT THAT NUMBER?

94 Larsson who wrote ‘‘The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo’’ 96 Additionally 98 Deletes, with ‘‘out’’ 99 Tree alternative 103 Kind of salami 105 N.Y.C.’s first subway line 106 Like some gas: Abbr.

107 ‘‘Big Sur’’ novelist, 1962 111 A suggestion 112 World capital whose name comes from the Greek for ‘‘wisdom’’ 114 Humble 116 Jazz composer with an Egyptian-inspired name 117 ‘‘____ your call’’ 118 ‘‘Elements of Algebra’’ author, 1770 119 First lady of the 1950s 120 Kind of pear that resembles an apple 121 Rapper with the 2003 hit ‘‘I Can’’ 122 ‘‘Judge ____’’ (1995 Stallone movie) 123 ____ and curl (salon treatment) 124 Not interfere with

G R I N

The New York Times Magazine Crossword

PHOTO BY RACHEL ROBINSON

ETC.

SAVAGE LOVE

By Dan Savage | mail@savagelove.net @fakedansavage

PREMIES.

Q: I’m a straight man who’s been dating a woman for not quite four months. In the beginning, things were light. But things started to get heavy quickly. Two weeks in, she revealed her very serious abandonment issues and then began asking me whether I really loved her and demanding reassurance that I wasn’t going anywhere and she wouldn’t be “just a single chapter” in my life. After a month, I met her 7-year-old son, her parents and her ex.

Then, we had a pregnancy scare. She told me that if she was pregnant, she would keep it because then I would have to stay. That alarmed me. I voiced that we’d been dating for very a short time, and this wasn’t a good time for either of us to have a child. She wasn’t pregnant, luckily. Even before this incident, my body had started to manifest signs of anxiety — upset stomach, sleepless nights, loss of appetite, etc. So, I summoned up all of my courage (conversations like this are extremely difficult for me) and told her that I couldn’t do this anymore. She started to cry and begged me to give her a second chance. I wound up spending the rest of the weekend at her place and agreed to stay in the relationship. But I didn’t feel good about it. When I finally got back to my place, I felt anxious, confused, hollow and hopeless. I tried to end things again after speaking to my therapist, but she won’t take no for an answer and constantly brings up the promises I made her about really loving her. I hate this, and I feel terrible for her son. Any thoughts on how to dismantle this thing? Or do I just need to run?

Passionate Reassurances Extracted So Soon Undoes Relationship Exit A: As I explained to a reader in a similar situation…

“We need someone’s consent before we kiss them, suck them, fuck them, spank them, spoon them, marry them, collar them, etc.

But we do not need someone’s consent to leave them. Breakups are the only aspect of our romantic lives where the other person’s consent is irrelevant. The other person’s pain is relevant, of course, and we should be as compassionate and considerate as possible when ending a relationship. (Unless we’re talking about dumping an abuser, in which case safety and self-care are all that matters.) But we don’t need someone’s consent to dump them.”

Voice that it’s over, PRESSURE, and then refuse to get drawn into negotiations about whether it’s over. It’s over. If she needs to cry on someone’s shoulder, she’ll have to call a friend. And if she brings up

the promises you made after she “revealed” her abandonment issues weeks into this relationship, apologize for not being strong enough to resist her obvious—if possibly subconscious—efforts to manipulate you.

She shouldn’t have asked you to swear your undying love after you’d known each other for such a short time and you shouldn’t have made the promises you did. You failed her and yourself by not telling her it was too soon for that shit—too soon to say “I love you,” too soon to know whether she would be a chapter in your life, too soon to meet her son (!), her parents (!!), and her ex (!!!).

Demands for premature reassurances of everlasting love, like all demands for premature commitments, are intended to make exiting the relationship more difficult.

Not for the person making the demands, of course; they’re always free to go. They make it more difficult for the person those demands are being made of to go. And while I’m not calling your girlfriend an abuser, demands for premature commitments are often red flags for abuse; being asked to make a premature commitment after a few weeks or months—by moving in together or adopting a dog or (God forbid) getting married—makes it infinitely harder for a person to leave once the mask slips and they see the abuser lurking behind it. Again, I don’t think your girlfriend is an abuser, but she weaponized her insecurities (“It’s nice to meet you, now let me tell you about my abandonment issues!”) to extract what amounts to premature commitment from you. And she involved her son in that effort, which is really unconscionable. And while that’s on her, PRESSURE, not you, you should’ve refused to meet her son so quickly and seen her desire to introduce you to him as a red flag.

Learn the lessons, PRESSURE: When someone you’ve only recently started dating says, “Will you love me forever?,” the correct answer is never, “Of course I will!” The correct answer is always, “I think you’re a wonderful person and I want to keep seeing you but we can’t know—at this stage—what the future will bring.” If they respond by saying, “You know what? You’re right,” keep seeing them. If they respond by melting down and bringing up their abandonment issues, well, they’ve just demonstrated that they aren’t someone you would want a future with.

And finally, I’m #TeamAmanza on the issue of meeting a new partner’s children from a previous relationship. You should be seeing someone for at least six months to a year—you should be well out of the hon-

eymoon phase if not quite into the fartingin-front-of-each-other phase—before being introduced to your new partner’s kid(s).

Q: I’m a 32-year-old straight man dating a 31-year-old straight woman. We’ve been seeing each other for eight months and became “Facebook official” (if that’s still a thing) in June. We are both in our first serious relationship after being divorced from relatively long marriages. (Me: eight years, two kids. Her: 10 years, no kids.) My question is when does suspicion — suspicion of cheating — become something you should bring up? I tend to spill everything that’s going on in my life, which she says she appreciates but isn’t used to doing.

She’s a very independent person, which I’ve never experienced before. It’s refreshing to know that my partner has her own friends but there are moments when I get stonewalled. Sometimes I get vague answers or no answers about where she is or who she’s with. She often tells me she “accidentally” turned off her notifications. Sometimes she will say she’s staying in and then I later find out that she went out. Maybe I’m taking things way too seriously considering the amount of time we’ve been together but I feel I have to take things seriously since kids are involved.

The Absent Girlfriend A: The uncharitable read: Your hunch is correct, and your new girlfriend is being cagey about where she’s going and who she’s with because she’s cheating on you.

The charitable read: Your new girlfriend is 31 years old, she was married for 10 years, and you’ve been dating for eight months. Math has never been my strong suit but assuming her marriage didn’t end five minutes before you met, TAG, your girlfriend married very young. Which means she spent her entire adult life — most or all of her 20s and possibly a chunk of her teens — having to answer to a spouse. She only recently begun to experience the kind of autonomy most of us get to enjoy before we marry and settle down (if we marry and settle down), TAG, and she may be reluctant to surrender that autonomy so shortly after achieving it.

She may also have different ideas about what being Facebook official means. Does that mean you’re monogamous? If it does, does she define monogamy the same way you do? Some other questions: Was going Facebook official your idea or her idea?

Did you ask for a premature commitment?

You’re only eight months in—is it possible you involved your kids too soon?

You obviously need to have a conversation with your girlfriend — if you can get her on the phone — about your expectations and definitions. If you expect her to let you know where she is at all times and who’s she’s with, TAG, make that clear. But if

that is what you expect, well, here’s hoping she dumps you. Because even if you lived together, even if you were married, even if she wanted to spend the rest of her life with you, your girlfriend would still be entitled to a little privacy and her autonomy. mail@savagelove.net Follow Dan on Twitter @FakeDanSavage This week on the Lovecast, America’s favorite mortician- Caitlin Doughty! savagelovecast.com

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(NEXT TO ZIP’S CAR WASH) 7779 DIXIE HWY., LOUISVILLE, KY 40258

Leo’s Towing & Recovery, 510 E Broadway, Louisville, KY 40202 (502)-727-9503, has intention to obtain title of a 2004 Honda Accord White VIN #1HGCM66554A008765, Owner James Dennis barker 503 Hillview Blvd Louisville KY 40229 Lien Holder: none Unless owner or lienholder objects in written form within 14 days after the last publication of this notice.

Leo’s Towing & Recovery, 510 E Broadway, Louisville, KY 40202 (502)-727-9503, has intention to obtain title of a 1995 Merz. 420 Blue. VIN #WDBGA43E3SA218990, Owner Curtis W Weaver 6312 Serenity CT Louisville KY 40219 Lien Holder: None. Unless owner or lienholder objects in written form within 14 days after the last publication of this notice. Leo’s Towing & Recovery, 510 E Broadway, Louisville, KY 40202 (502)-7279503, has intention to obtain title of a 2005 Ford Taurus SE silver VIN # 1FAFP53UX5A189085, Owner Adriana Clair Adams 9080 N Meyers rd Bicknell, IN 47512 Lien Holder: none. Unless owner or lienholder objects in written form within 14 days after the last publication of this notice. Leo’s Towing & Recovery, 510 E Broadway, Louisville, KY 40202 (502)-727-9503, has intention to obtain title of a 2004 Jeep Grand Cherokees VIN #1J4GX48S94C268681, Owner Gerard Foote 10727 Colonial woods Louisville Ky 40223 Lien Holder: none Unless owner or lienholder objects in written form within 14 days after the last publication of this notice.

LEOWEEKLY.COM // SEPTEMBER 16, 2020

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LEOWEEKLY.COM // SEPTEMBER 16, 2020