DALLAS — A North Texas man injured in a shooting at a Deep Ellum bar, while working as security, has now sued the bar's owner for negligence.
The shooting happened Feb. 12 at the Free Man bar in the 2600 block of Commerce Street in Deep Ellum.
Cameron Cooper was working security at the bar when he was shot by a stray bullet from the street and put in critical condition. According to the bar owner, the gunfire happened as two people were having an argument on the street in front of the Free Man, WFAA reported.
Dallas police said Cooper was an innocent bystander of an incident that went sour outside of the Free Man's property.
"Anything on the other side of those ropes, that’s the city of Dallas," Gino Lock-Johnson Iglehart, general manager at the Free Man, said at the time. "We can't control what happens on the other side of our property line."
Lock-Johnson Iglehart said one of the eventual gunmen came into the venue to look around for the man with whom he was arguing. But after not spotting him inside the space, Lock-Johnson Iglehart said that person quickly exited the space.
"The guy ran through here," Cooper's sister, Camille, said. "The guy ran back out the door. Then bullets started flying."
Korbin Smith, 23, and Donnel Davis, 35, were arrested in the case, police said.
Cooper filed a lawsuit on April 18 against the bar owners of the Free Man for negligence, requesting a jury trial and seeking damages upward of $1 million, but preferably to be decided by the jury.
The lawsuit claims the bar owners were negligent because "the crime at issue here was foreseeable based on the number, proximity and frequency of previous similar crimes on or near the premises."
According to the lawsuit, Cooper was shot in the stomach and leg, has spent time on a ventilator and has underwent numerous surgeries. Cooper continues to require medical treatment as a result of the injuries he sustained from the shooting, the lawsuit states.
The Free Man owners told WFAA it did not have any comment at this time regarding the lawsuit.
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