DALLAS — The mother of a woman killed in a Deep Ellum shooting has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the bar where the shooting occurred.
Christi Jones, mother of 30-year-old Danielle Jones, is suing Bitter End LLC, Westdale Real Estate Investment & Asset Management Ltd., Westdale Properties America I Ltd and others.
The shooting happened at Bitter End bar back in March 2023. Two people were killed in the shooting, including Danielle Jones, who was a mother to a then-8-year-old boy. Tommy Spell, 25, was charged with capital murder in relation to the shooting.
Police said Spell was already in Dallas County Jail on unrelated felony charges. The department obtained an arrest warrant and charged the 25-year-old with capital murder.
Spell's other unrelated charges include aggravated assault, aggravated robbery and deadly conduct, according to jail records.
In the recently-filed lawsuit, Christi Jones alleges negligence on part of Bitter End for not addressing crime that was committed around the area and actively allowed and attracted "gangsters, gangster music, and known criminal elements." Christi Jones also alleges open drug use and lude conduct was commonly witnessed at Bitter End.
WFAA has reached out to Bitter End and Westdale Properties for a statement on the lawsuit.
Police said 37-year-old Rickey Gossett, the other victim in the shooting, was on the patio of the bar when he was approached by a suspect who then fired multiple gunshots.
Danielle Jones was standing inside the bar at the time when she was also struck by a bullet that went through a window.
A month after the shooting, Dallas police released surveillance video of the incident as they continued their search for the suspect. The video showed the suspect firing shots and then running away.
This is the second time Christi Jones has filed a lawsuit where Bitter End is named as a defendant.
In April, Bitter End LLC was the lone defendant named in a wrongful death lawsuit. That lawsuit alleged the bar knew the suspect and could have called police before the shooting, and that the business exposed Jones "to an unreasonable risk of harm" on that night.
Added in the new lawsuit, Christi Jones alleges that Westdale Properties, which owns and leases the property to Bitter End LLC, had "failed to adequately conduct inspections of the premises and failed to ensure its tenant was operating within the confines of the law, despite knowing or constructively knowing that violent crime and/or the risk thereof was occurring on or near the Bitter End premises and that Bitter End was purposefully promoting events that attracted known criminal elements."
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