Garden City bar shooting: Trial begins after 2 shot outside Rockstarz on New Year's Day

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Brian Lindsay

GARDEN CITY, Mich. (FOX 2) - The trial is set to begin Monday morning for a man charged with shooting two people outside a Garden City bar early New Year's Day.

Brian Lindsay, 30, of Livonia, is charged with two counts of assault with intent to murder, two counts of assault with intent to do great bodily harm, two counts of felonious assault, and six counts of felony firearm after the shooting in the parking lot of Rockstarz.

The backstory:

Police were called to the bar on Ford Road around 4:15 a.m. Jan. 1 after a 55-year-old man and his 22-year-old son, both from Livonia, were found with gunshot wounds in the parking lot. They suffered critical injuries, and were taken to hospitals for treatment.

According to police, a fight led to Lindsay allegedly shooting the older man in the head and the younger man in the chest before fleeing.

Lindsay turned himself into police the next day.

Lindsay's attorney said during his arraignment that the shooting was self-defense.

According to the lawyer, before the shooting, the father and son allegedly pulled Lindsay out of his vehicle and started assaulting him. This led to Lindsay, who is a concealed pistol license holder, shooting them.

Video of the shooting:

Security cameras at the bar captured the interaction between Lindsay and the victims.

Lindsay was seen attempting to back into a spot where a group was gathered around 4:15 a.m. Jan. 1. While most of the group moved out of the way, Dennis Kewin stayed behind the vehicle until Lindsay's partner, Catherine Honke, pushed him.

Video then showed Dennis Kewin going toward the driver's side of Lindsay's vehicle. The door opened, though the video is not clear enough to see who opened the door, according to Garden City Police Detective Micah Hull, who testified as the video was shown. As the door opened, Lindsay came out of his vehicle with what Hull testified was a handgun in his hand.

There was an altercation that was hard to see because of a smudge on the corner of the camera. Several witnesses testified that they saw Lindsay choking Dennis Kewin, but Lindsay's defense attorney noted that those witnesses did not see what led to that moment.

During that struggle, three shots were fired before Lindsay left the scene. Dennis Kewin and his son, Brendan Kewin, were both shot.

About an hour later, Lindsay called police to report what happened, and he turned himself in about 10 hours later. When he arrived at the Garden City Police Department, he had a black eye, a knot on his head, and was limping. His attorney, Ted Wallace, argued that this shows his client was injured during the encounter, while the prosecution pushed back against this, saying that the injuries could have happened after he left the bar.

What's next:

Jury selection will begin Monday morning in Wayne County's Third Circuit Court.

Dig deeper:

In April, Rockstarz closed permanently.

Owner Greg Wier cited rumors about the bar after the shooting as the reason for shuttering.

"Something completely out of our control, but what followed was unimaginable," he said in a video announcing the closure. "People who weren't there started talking, stories got twisted, rumors and lies spread like facts."

Wier said people online said the shooting started inside and accused bartenders of overserving.

In Wier's video, he also showed photos of comments and reviews that claimed the bar had problems before the shooting, accusations he maintains are untrue.

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