On June 11, 2024, TikToker mariejoye1 shared cell phone footage of a man on a rooftop in Louisville, Kentucky, appearing to aim a rifle at the street. Those who saw it in real life did what anyone else would, and called the police. But despite the video evidence, authorities called reports of a man with a gun “unfounded,” mariejoye1 said.
Louisville police responded to reports of a man with a gun, but when they arrived about five minutes after the call, the man was gone, and they found no evidence of shots fired, WLKY reported. However, the caption on mariejoye1’s post tells a different story. It read in part,
… When police arrived we showed the video, reported hearing shots fired, even one of the officers who was handling a collision on the SAME corner admitted to hearing it but uncertain where it came from….yet, there’s been no alert to the community and denial that it even occurred😒.”
via mariejoye1/TikTok
Mariejoye1 also said she did not record the footage, but it was given to her by someone else to share on social media.
mariejoye1 found her Louisville police precinct doors locked
Mariejoye1 told her TikTok followers to find her on Facebook as “Shreeta Marie,” where she would provide further updates. Meanwhile, a woman identified as Shreeta Waldon, the executive director of the Kentucky Harm Reduction Coalition, told WLKY, “We were fearful because we didn’t know what was going on. Let’s say, for instance, that this long weapon, this long gun was a BB gun or some pellet gun. We don’t know as a community what was going on.” Mariejoye1 shared that WLKY news story on TikTok, confirming she’s Shreeta Waldon.
In a follow-up TikTok post, Waldon said she went to her local police precinct, but found the doors locked. Louisville news outlet WDRB also covered the story, as Waldon’s footage went viral online. WDRB said Louisville police told them that “the man may have fired his gun into the air, but nobody was hurt and that while it is scary, the man was not an active aggressor.”
Waldon later shared that story on TikTok, too, and pointed out that Black children have been shot and killed by the police with toy guns, so what would have made that man, who was white, “an active aggressor?”
Waldon spoke with detectives
Shreeta Waldon also shared the WDRB story on Facebook reels and said the police told her without a witness or a victim, there wasn’t much they could do. She asked anyone who may know who the person is, or who heard or saw something that day to come forward.
Comments on Waldon’s posts ranged from fear and disbelief to appreciation for Waldon pressing the matter with the authorities. Some suggested Louisville police were attempting to cover up the situation. Some were still shaken by the mass shooting of five people at a Louisville bank, a bit more than a year before the rooftop incident.
