It has been more than two weeks since a shooting at an unpermitted event in Dallas left one person dead and 16 others hurt.
Now the city of Dallas is filing a lawsuit.
The suit was filed Wednesday by Dallas city attorneys. It names Germaud L. Lyons, the event promoter known as "Bossman Bubba," and St. John Missionary Baptist Church, which owns the property where the concert was held.
NBC 5 reached out to both Lyons and the church and at the time of this writing has not heard back. It is unknown if they have attorneys.
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“Because the proper process wasn’t followed, a tragedy occurred,” said Jill Haning, an executive assistant city attorney and chief of community prosecution, in a report by the Dallas Morning News. “We’re just trying to hold the people responsible that need to be held responsible and try to prevent it from happening again.”
Overnight on Saturday, April 2, officers responded to a shooting at an unpermitted trail ride and concert in the 5000 block of Cleveland Road in southern Dallas.
Kealon Dejuane Gilmore, 26, was killed in the shooting. Gilmore is reported to have been shot in the head near the stage and died at the scene. Sixteen others, ranging in age from 13 to 29, were injured.
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No arrests have been made.
According to the lawsuit, obtained by the Dallas Morning News, the church has “repeatedly” disregarded city rules and provides no oversight of the 50-acre rural area where the shooting happened. The property, the suit says, is the site of an unpermitted horse trail and park and has regularly hosted unregulated parties that lacked security and crowd control. Click here to read more.
Lyons and St. John Missionary Baptist Church were also named in another suit filed by the families of two young women seriously injured in that shooting. The suit seeks $1 million in damages.
Attorneys said the families hope to prevent similar tragedies in the future.
Dallas Chief of Police Eddie Garcia had said that seven off-duty officers were said to be working at the event but that they left before the outbreak of violence.
"This crime is a prime example that non-permitted and promoted events can lead to violence," Garcia said. "While the off-duty employment was approved these officers should not have been working the event that had no permit.”
Meantime, other event promoters, who said they had nothing to do with the unauthorized event that turned deadly, met with Dallas Police on Wednesday night to discuss ways to move forward and prevent future tragedies.
