Family of Florida Man Awarded $4
FORT PIERCE, FL – The family of a Florida man killed by a sheriff’s deputy has been awarded $4 by a federal jury.
For more than four years, questions swirled about the mysterious shooting death of Gregory Vaughn Hill Jr. Deputy Christopher Newman killed Gregory Hill Jr., 30, in 2014 after a mother picking up her child at a school across the street called in a noise complaint. Hill partially opened the garage door, then closed it, and Newman fired four times, hitting Hill three times, including once in the head, according to court and police records. There were only three witnesses: two St. Lucie County sheriff’s deputies and Mr. Hill.
In a lawsuit filed by the family, jurors were asked to decide whether his constitutional rights had been violated and whether his estate should be awarded damages. After jury deliberations for about 10 hours they found that Hill “was under the influence of alcoholic beverages to the extent that his normal faculties were impaired and that as a result of the influence of such alcoholic beverages,” he was 99% liable for the “incident and his resulting injuries,” according to the verdict form.
How much, jurors were asked, were the pain and suffering of Mr. Hill’s three children worth? The jury awarded $4 in damages: $1 for funeral expenses and $1 for each child’s loss. Attorney John Phillips, who represents Hill’s mother Viola Bryant in this case, has filed a wrongful death lawsuit.
