Robert Hinton, 28, was due to receive a massive police brutality settlement, but just before the settlement was scheduled to pay out – he was mysteriously killed.
The $450,000 settlement from the city was due to be paid to Hinton after he won it approximately two months ago.
That decision came after a court decided that corrections officers had used inexcusable and unjustifiable force against Hinton during his imprisonment at Rikers Prison.
The judge in this case wrote in her decision, that she found “Hinton was never uncuffed during the use of force and was incapable of defending himself, Once inside the cell,” the officers “left Hinton handcuffed and shackled and administered a brutal beating that was contemplated before they entered the cell.”
The captain said, during the abuse, “you don’t get what you want, you get what you deserve, which is an ass-whipping.”
“Unfortunately, what happened to Robert happens every day on Rikers Island. Robert’s the lucky one who got his day in court,” lawyer Nicole Bellina said of the brutality during Hinton’s trial.
The Free Thought Project explains that “Rikers is notorious for mistreatment of its inmates, earlier this year it was reported that Rikers allowed guards to rape female inmates with the consent of public officials. Prior to that, there were concerns about rat poison being found in the food that was served to prisoners. After the poison was found in their food, they were then denied medical attention so the prison could avoid any evidence being collected.”
Surveillance footage ultimately led to the settlement. It revealed that corrections officers hog-tied Hinton then beat him. This happened all while he was shackled and clearly no threat to anyone.
That didn’t stop five corrections officers, including a captain, from entering his cell and brutally assaulting him.
“We had a conversation about how hopeful he was, about how the settlement money was going to give him a chance for a fresh start,” lawyer Bellina said upon hearing of Hinton’s death.
The Free Thought Project notes that “The timing of his death is extremely strange, and there will undoubtedly be suspicion thrown towards the city and the police department who may now get out of paying nearly a half million dollars towards his settlement.”
Adding that “His mother had a strange conversation with him just before his death, where he said that he had a feeling that something bad was going to happen.”
“He felt like something was going to happen to him,” Robert Hinton’s mother Parys Johnson said in an interview with the Daily News.
“We had this conversation and his words to me were: ”You know mom, if something happens to me, make sure (my girlfriend) Michelle and the baby’s all right.”
The police say they have no leads. Do you think they had anything to do with this? Or was this all a big coincidence?