Last week, a Tennessee jury found cop-killer Timothy McKinney guilty of attempted second-degree murder for shooting at a man inside a North Memphis grocery store and striking a teenage boy instead. McKinney – who at one time was a death row inmate – could now spend the rest of his life behind bars for the Jan 29th conviction.
McKinney killed Memphis PD officer Don Williams on Christmas Day 1997, outside a comedy club. Police say McKinney crashed an invite-only bash at Crumpy’s nightclub – where Williams was working for $19/hour doing security detail, while off-duty. McKinney started heckling one of the comedians and was thrown out of the club. He vowed to return and “shoot up the club or blow it up.”
He was found “loitering outside the club” when another security guard at the door refused to let him back in. At one point during the night he was detained, but Williams reportedly let him off easy and decided not to take him to jail… At about 2:30am Williams was standing near some sound techs who were packing up for the night, and that’s when he was gunned down. Williams, who was 37 years old, never recovered from the gunshot wound that “entered the neck and exited his mouth, shattering the nerves that controlled his breathing.”
There were three trials following the murder. The first ended with a hung jury, the second, in 1999, a jury convicted and McKinney was sent to Death Row. His lawyers appealed and McKinney was granted a new trial in 2013 — but the jury deadlocked.
Prosecutors did not want to try for a fourth trial — they’d been cited over the years for suppressing key evidence in the case. McKinney agreed to plead guilty to second-degree murder and attempted second-degree murder for the death of Officer Williams — for which he would be released in May 2013.
He spent 15 years behind bars for the crime, an abbreviated sentence for killing a cop– the Daily Beast reports.
McKinney was a free man again- but not for long. He targeted a “menace” in June 2014, who was reportedly harassing him for cigarettes outside a Memphis market. When McKinney went inside the store and began shooting at the man, he hit an innocent bystander instead – a teenager who was getting change for his mother. The boy survived the shooting.
Because of McKinney’s criminal record – this latest conviction for attempted second-degree murder could mean his days as a free man are over for good.
