‘I’m afraid for my life’: Las Vegas city worker sent chilling note to HR just months before his death

‘I’m afraid for my life’: Las Vegas city worker sent chilling note to HR just months before his death

Months before Las Vegas city maintenance worker Joey McLean was fatally shot at work, he sent human resources a written warning that he feared for his safety and believed a conflict with coworker Brysen Kim had become dangerously unpredictable.

FOX5 Las Vegas reporter Kim Passoth said more than 1,500 pages of city records showed that supervisors and human resources officials knew about the worsening dispute well before McLean was shot in the head on the morning of June 12.

Kim is now charged with McLean’s murder and has pleaded not guilty, with his trial scheduled for February. The allegations against him have not been proven in court, but the internal records raise difficult questions about how the city evaluated McLean’s warnings and why the two men continued working the same shift after both filed complaints.

McLean Requested an Urgent Transfer

Passoth reported that McLean and Kim had once considered each other friends, although their relationship had deteriorated by February, when McLean asked to move to another work location.

He did not identify Kim by name in that initial request, but he made clear that he believed the transfer could not wait until the city’s next routine shift-bidding process.

“If I could put this off until next shift bid, I would,” McLean wrote. “Unfortunately, this is urgent. I need the city to be flexible and help.”

That wording suggests McLean was not simply seeking a more convenient schedule or preferred assignment, because he framed the request as an immediate need rather than an ordinary workplace preference.

Within days, Kim filed his own human resources complaint against McLean, accusing him of several troubling actions that he believed had placed him at risk or targeted him personally.

Kim alleged that McLean had unlatched the lower latch on the bed of a dump truck, causing the entire bed to fall when Kim attempted to close it and nearly crushing his feet.

He also complained that McLean had written “Keep it Aloha” on his work truck. Kim, who identified himself as Hawaiian, told management that he interpreted the phrase as a negative or mocking reference to his nationality.

The records therefore showed that both employees believed the other had crossed serious boundaries, which should have made it clear that the dispute was more than a routine disagreement between coworkers.

A Written Warning Described Stalking and Fear

McLean later filed a formal complaint against Kim that was far more direct, describing what he called a pattern of “escalating events” and asking the city to take immediate action.

“I am writing to reiterate the severity of this situation and to request immediate and definitive action to ensure my safety,” McLean wrote, according to the records reviewed by Passoth.

He alleged that Kim was stalking him outside work hours, which McLean said added another level of fear and intimidation to the conflict.

McLean also claimed that Kim had delusions, used steroids, had access to a firearm, and had spoken about a gang affiliation. Those were McLean’s allegations in an internal complaint, not independently established findings, but he told the city that the combination made Kim’s threats seem credible and his behavior unpredictable.

“I am afraid for my life,” McLean wrote.

That sentence is difficult to read as ordinary workplace frustration, particularly when it appeared in a formal communication asking human resources to intervene. Even if management had questions about some of McLean’s claims, the overall message was unmistakable: he believed the conflict had moved beyond insults and scheduling problems into a possible threat to his physical safety.

A responsible workplace review would need to assess the credibility of each allegation, interview witnesses, examine supporting evidence, and separate fact from fear. However, the seriousness of the warning itself should have required a response centered first on safety rather than on preserving an ordinary staffing arrangement.

City Managers Debated Whether the Situation Was an Emergency

Following the complaints, McLean was placed on paid leave and his city badge was deactivated, preventing him from accessing work sites during that period.

City managers also discussed whether to approve his request to work elsewhere, but one internal message showed concern that granting an emergency transfer could encourage other employees to make similar requests whenever positions became available.

“I think we open the door for one ‘emergency transfer,’ and we will have this same situation occur after every vacated position,” a manager wrote, according to Passoth’s report.

The same message questioned who should decide what counted as an emergency and compared McLean’s request with personal preferences such as taking a child to school, sleeping at night, eating lunch during daylight hours, or watching football on Sundays.

“They both chose their shift,” the manager wrote. “They need to learn to work together and have an amicable relationship.”

That response appears to have treated the dispute partly as a management challenge involving two employees who needed to improve their behavior, rather than as a safety complaint in which one worker had explicitly said he feared being killed.

Employers must be careful not to reward unsupported accusations or allow every disagreement to dictate staffing, but McLean’s complaint went far beyond dissatisfaction with a schedule. Comparing his stated fear of stalking and gun violence with ordinary lifestyle preferences seems to have minimized the nature of what he was reporting.

The Two Men Continued Working Together

After McLean returned from paid leave, he and Kim continued working together on more than two dozen occasions before the shooting, although Passoth said they were assigned to separate tasks.

That arrangement may have been intended to reduce direct contact while allowing both employees to remain on the same shift, but it did not fully separate them or remove the possibility of another confrontation.

The records do not establish that city officials knew a shooting would occur, and hindsight can make warning signs appear more certain than they seemed at the time. Still, the volume and wording of the complaints show that management knew the relationship had become deeply hostile.

Separate assignments may have lowered the chance of an argument during a particular task, but they did not address McLean’s allegation that Kim was following him outside work or his concern that Kim had access to a firearm.

The central question is not whether supervisors could have predicted the exact events of June 12, but whether they treated the reported danger with the level of caution it deserved.

When an employee writes, “I am afraid for my life,” a workplace should be able to show that it conducted a serious threat assessment and considered meaningful separation, security planning, or other protective measures.

Shooting Leads to Murder Charge

The fatal encounter occurred on the morning of June 12, when authorities say Kim shot McLean in the head at a city workplace.

A 911 call included in the FOX5 report captured someone telling a dispatcher that one employee had shot another and that the weapon had been placed on a desk.

Kim was later charged with murder.

He pleaded not guilty earlier in July, and the criminal case will determine whether prosecutors can prove the charge beyond a reasonable doubt. The internal complaints, transfer request, and management discussions provide important background, but they do not replace the evidence that will be presented in court.

Passoth reported that Las Vegas Mayor Shelley Berkley had addressed how the city planned to review the events leading up to the shooting, although the report did not provide full details of that review.

The city’s examination will need to consider not only the actions of the two employees but also whether existing policies gave supervisors clear guidance for responding when a workplace conflict included alleged stalking, weapons access, and explicit fear of death.

Records Leave the City Facing Difficult Questions

The more than 1,500 pages obtained by FOX5 show that the breakdown between McLean and Kim unfolded over months rather than emerging without warning.

Both men made accusations, and the city had to determine what could be confirmed, but McLean’s final complaint presented a clear request for protection and described a threat that he believed was becoming more serious.

The city did take some action by placing McLean on paid leave, deactivating his badge, and assigning the two men to separate work duties after he returned. Even so, the records indicate that officials resisted the idea of an emergency transfer partly because of concerns about setting a precedent.

That concern may be understandable in ordinary personnel disputes, but workplace safety decisions cannot be reduced to whether other employees might later ask for similar treatment. Each case must be judged on the evidence and the level of risk presented.

McLean’s family is now left knowing that he warned the city in writing that he was afraid for his life, while the public is left asking whether a stronger response could have prevented the men from continuing to share a workplace.

Kim’s guilt or innocence remains for the court to decide, but the city’s own records already show that the danger McLean described was not hidden from management. It was documented, debated, and ultimately followed by the exact kind of workplace violence he had said he feared.