LAS VEGAS (KTNV) — The wife of city maintenance worker Joey McLean, who was shot and killed by a coworker, is preparing to sue the city of Las Vegas.
On Thursday, Monica McLean and her attorneys, Ofelia Markarian and Corinne Murphy, announced they would be filing a lawsuit alleging Joey's institutional rights under the Constitution were violated.
"The chief allegation, in sum and substance, is that they failed to keep an employee safe and these weren't the unexpected criminal actions of a third party," Murphy said. "This was somebody who Joey had warned his employer about again and again and again, and he said he is a physical threat to me. We are entitled to go to work, especially when we work for the government. We are entitled to go to work and have it be a violence-free environment."
WATCH: Maintenance worker's widow preparing to sue City of Las Vegas
Channel 13 obtained thousands of pages of records from the city, which outline months of escalating conflict between McLean and coworker Brysen Kim.
Back on Feb. 12, McLean emailed city leaders asking if he could change his shift because he claimed another coworker was "biased towards him."
An email from Feb. 14 that was sent by Kim alleges that McLean almost crushed his feet by unlatching the bed of a dump truck, McLean "had a stare-off with me for no reason whatsoever as an intimidation method", and McLean sent him a message "attacking me personally about my religion, my relationship with my wife, [and] my lifestyle."
City leaders began looking into the matter in February and continued looking into it as McLean and Kim both continued filing complaints and follow-ups to managers, city leaders and human resources.
Things continued escalating and led up to the events of June 12.
WATCH: Records show months of conflict before fatal shooting involving city employees
Melvin Segovia, the crew leader for the Downtown Maintenance Services facility, said that morning Kim was walking towards McLean in an aggressive manner before punching and kicking him. When McLean fell to the ground, Segovia told a grand jury that Kim continued kicking him to the point that McLean was unconscious.
Segovia and Skyler Winquist both tried to hold Kim back, but Winquist told the grand jury that Kim pulled something out of his waistband and he heard a "pop, pop, pop."
"I let go of him immediately and looked around, make sure I'm not hit, looked at Melvin, and Brysen had his gun in his hand. Melvin was pointing in his face like, 'Put the f***ing gun down. Put the gun down," Winquist said during his testimony. "He said the same things over and over. F*** this. They could have fixed this. Blah Blah Blah."
Winquist said McLean was shot in the head and he never moved.
This is not the first incident where Kim brought a gun to work. Homicide detective Thomas O'Connell testified there was a documented incident where Kim had left a firearm unattended in a bathroom at work that was recovered by management.
WATCH INITIAL BRIEFING: Police release preliminary information about city employee shooting
Murphy said this is one of several examples where city management should have moved McLean and Kim to different shifts.
"We cannot stop people [from] unexpectedly acting violent but the city has a duty to separate employees or keep an employee who is prone to violence and has been having escalating issues with another employee at work," Murphy said.
City leaders, including Mayor Shelley Berkley, have said they followed established protocol and procedures that were outlined in the union contract.
"We've tried to be as transparent as possible. We don't have the OSHA report. We don't have the final report from Metro yet. The city was following all of the processes that we have in place and we followed the union contract that we have to do A, B, and C before we can move somebody from an assigned area," Berkley said in a press conference earlier this month. "This is a tragedy. You think to yourself, especially as leadership of the city, what could we have done differently? I've asked the same questions you have. Could we have expedited this? Could we have taken one of them out of that area? We have done everything we possibly could. ... The reality is two families have been horribly impacted and may never recover from this tragedy."
You can read a copy of the union contract below.
Attorneys for McLean's family said that answer isn't good enough.
"My understanding is that they were going to write Joey up the morning that he got murdered and the fact that they say efforts were underway is meaningless when this has been going on for months and months and months," Murphy said. "Five, six, seven months is long enough for an employer to take action. For them to give this very neutral response of well, efforts were underway, those efforts were worthless because Joey's not here."
As for next steps, McLean's attorneys said they need to set up the estate before they can file a complaint against the city.
"Generally, it takes between 60 to 90 days to set up the estate. We've already retained a probate attorney for that," Murphy said. "He's already working on it. So as soon as that is done, we will have the complaint filed."
They're hoping that the lawsuit will lead to change.
"I think at a minimum, we're looking for policy change and not just policy change but an acknowledgment that the City of Las Vegas' own protocols weren't followed," Murphy said. "There was a very sloppy attitude towards this situation, and what I have seen already in just a small amount of internal emails was an incredibly dismissive attitude."
As far as the criminal case against Kim, he is facing a murder charge, and court records show the next court hearing is Aug. 25.