LOUISVILLE, Ky. — The family of Christopher McKinney, a man who died at Nowhere Bar on Jan. 5, 2020, is offering a $5,000 dollar reward for anyone who has information from that night.
McKinney died after being involved in an altercation with a security guard the bar employed.
The security guard was not charged in the incident as the Commonwealth's Attorney's Office stated the he was permitted in the “legally proper use of physical force in self-protection.”
McKinney's families and attorneys allege the security guard has a violent past and that he admitted to police he had been drinking that night. They also allege that police failed to seize relevant surveillance footage that could have shown what had happened.
Additionally, three LMPD officers were working as off duty security at Nowhere Bar the night of the incident and one of them transported the security guard to the homicide unit for questioning, the family said.
"My family and I are suffering in agony every single day because LMPD failed to do their job and so did the Commonwealth Attorney's Office," said McKinney's husband, Nicholas Clark. "There's so many things that went wrong and it's obvious."
The security guard involved in the incident was fired from the Highlands bar days after McKinney's death.
The family of McKinney says that he was not a physical threat to patrons or staff at Nowhere Bar and that the security guard's one hit to the head immediately caused him to go unconscious. McKinney later died at University of Hospital.
"One thing that we do know is that Christopher was not a physical threat to patrons that night, there's no hard evidence to show that," said Clark.
Clark says he has asked that McKinney's case be shown to a Grand Jury. He says one of the reasons the bouncer wasn't prosecuted was outlined in a letter from the Commonwealth's Attorney, Tom Wine,who says the one blow does not show indifference to life.
"They relied on their own judgment to determine whether one punch could cause serious physical injury," said Clark.
The Commonwealth Attorney's Office says while they take this extremely seriously, they don't have any plans to reopen the investigation and say the facts show that the security guard was acting in self-defense.
Next week the two would have eaten the top tier of their wedding cake, a long held tradition for a one year anniversary. Instead, Clark is pleading for anyone who knows something to come forward. "I'm happy to do it, he deserves it and I'm just so proud of the man that he was," said Clark.
The McKinney family filed a lawsuit against Nowhere Bar, bar officials, the security guard involved, LMPD and Louisville Metro Government in June.
If you have information about McKinney and what happened that night, send an email to JusticeForChristopher22184@gmail.com.
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