Parents of man killed at 'Tha City Paper' show sue rapper, club

Nearly a year ago, someone gunned down 22-year-old Brian Amos Jr. inside Bentley’s House of Soul, a club near downtown Nashville.

Last week, his parents, Karen Bates-Thompson and Brian Amos Sr., filed a multimillion-dollar lawsuit against the club, its security, local rapper Marcus Fitzgerald (aka “Tha City Paper”) and his record label Felonious Entertainment LLC citing negligence in their son’s death, which they said happened at the club on the same night as a performance by Fitzgerald.

According to the Metro Nashville Police Department at the time, Amos got into an argument inside the club’s bathroom and was later shot in the stomach. He died soon after at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.

The suit, which can be found here [1], alleges that the security check procedures for Bentley’s House of Soul were inadequate on the night of the concert.

“It is further alleged that all defendants knew or should have known that by the nature of music being played by ... ‘Tha City Paper’, that it was foreseeable that some patrons in the crowd could possess weapons,” the lawsuit states.

The suit claims that Bentley’s House of Soul and One World Protection, a security agency, didn’t implement “thorough and detailed” security checks.

Amos’ parents seek compensatory damages of up to $7 million and no more than $10 million in punitive damages.

No arrests have yet been made in the case, despite a reportedly large crowd in the club for the concert. The person who shot Amos is listed as John Doe in the lawsuit filed in Davidson County Circuit Court.

Tim Bowden, the attorney for Amos’ parents, said he didn’t want to file the civil action before an arrest was made in the case, but the one-year statute of limitations forced them to file.

Neither Fitzgerald nor the management of Bentley’s House of Soul could be reached for comment Tuesday afternoon.