Op-Ed: On January 8th, 2020, on the 5600 block of Indian Springs Avenue, near Ann Rod and Clayton Street: Sidney De’Trae McKnight was found dead; on the floor by people within the neighborhood who called 911 to report a man passed out on the floor.

McKnight’s death was ruled a homicide by; NLVPD detectives on; January 10th, 2020. Which that same day: the corner ID his body with a gunshot wound to the head. Arriving officers first had thought that it was a drunk passed out person soon they realized there was blood coming out of his head.

Sidney McKnight was an alumni of Foothill High School class of 2012: As well as alumni of CSN for mechanical engineering with a taste for sound engineering as a hobby. Sidney was always on the grind: from being in the distribution industry for Amazon before his death up to working in the food industry and or; even seeking side hustles to keep bringing in food into the household alongside his mother; Freda Roberts.

A few years before his passing, Sidney McKnight had spoken to us about; how much he wanted to achieve his goals of becoming self-sufficient financially: to help him and his family get out of the rough area they were living in at the moment. Even though he and we both loved the culture within the area we both understood the negative effects it had for BIPOC like him and us that wanted to reach a scholar dream.

We always talked about how he was a gentle giant: Now, this gentle giant has reached the highest place possible within a reality-based and grown from social constructs. This gentle giant leaves behind an amazing working-class family who have been heartbroken by losing their own gentle giant to gun violence within Las Vegas, Nevada.

It has been a year already; The North Las Vegas Police Department still has no answers on the matter. We have reached out to them personally and, we get nothing but being tossed from one line to another phone wise while our emails get ignored. We tried reaching out to Joe Moller: reporter for 8 News Now, and we were left on “read” after we kept pushing for answers. A year later and it seems like all they are trying to do is bury the case and or ignore it.