We Did Not Intend to Cause a Riot at Aunt Maye's Funeral.

By: Bobby Johnson, WTL

Updated: 5:10 PM CT, Mon March 28, 2022

Here at WTL NEWS, we take all allegations seriously. Seriously, we do. That being said, we unequivocally deny any and all implications that we set out to cause a riot at Aunt Maye's funeral. We did not. We are deeply saddened and quite frankly very confused about the whole situation.

To clarify, we understand how our actions led to the riot at Aunt Maye's funeral. I don't think anyone in the studio is denying that. We understand that the actions taken by our reporter caused tensions to rise. However, we did not set out to cause the riot that we did indeed cause.

We did not set out to cause the riot that we did indeed cause

We had no idea that referring to Aunt Maye's cooking as "matching IHOP in calories but not in flavor" would trigger so many family members to get the police called. We were under the impression that the funeral had the roast aspect that the press was invited to be a part of. We did not, however, intend to cause the riot.

We were ignorant to the fact that the police force was made up of the family of Uncle Jimmy, who Aunt Maye divorced not four years ago in a very public display of violence and court appearances. We did not know that they would use the police call to reenact the fight between the families those few years prior. Despite us filming the whole thing and bringing a van full of pepper spray and maces, we did not intend for this to happen.

We were ignorant to the face that the police force was made up of the family of Uncle Jimmy

There is no way we could have known that paying the bail for Aunt Mayes sister, the one who caused her "accidental" and untimely death, and inviting her to the funeral under the condition that she wore a shirt saying "she deserved it", would lead to such an aggressive and tense situation at the funeral. We understand how it did exactly that, but we had no intention of that happening.

We appreciate the understanding of the public at this time and will happily answer any questions about how our actions caused the death of four and the hospitalization of six, but our intentions certainly did not.