Alachua County jury awards $7.5M to family of man murdered in 2021 at Gainesville car wash

An Alachua County jury late Wednesday returned a $7.5 million verdict against the owner of an east Gainesville car wash where a 24-year-old man was shot and later died in May 2021.

The lawsuit was filed against Kokomo Key Properties Inc., doing business as Swamp Car Wash, in March 2022, months after the shooting death of Bobby Hopkins outside the business at 912 E. University Ave.

Hopkins called 911 at about 12:46 p.m. on May 22, 2021, to report that he had been shot in the chest. He was taken by a friend to UF Health Shands Hospital, where he died from his injuries.

Filed by South Florida-based The Haggard Law Firm on behalf of Lonetta Carter — the mother of Hopkins' two minor children — the lawsuit argued that Swamp Car Wash should have known its business was in a "high-crime area" and that it had a "duty to take such precautions as were reasonably necessary to protect customers and invitees ... from reasonably foreseeable criminal attacks ... ."

Douglas McCarron, a partner with The Haggard Law Firm, said Thursday that a security expert whom they hired to examine the property recommended that the car wash install security cameras, fencing and a gate — all things the car wash has since added.

Politics: DeSantis, Ashley Moody, voters: Who wants recreational marijuana in Florida and who doesn't?

The lawsuit also said that based on prior acts of violence in the area, including shootings, aggravated assaults, batteries, drug sales and robberies, Swamp Car Wash should have taken steps to provide "proper security" for its customers.

"They really started losing control of the property," McCarron said, while referencing the fatal January 2021 shooting of Thomas Jamal Smith that took place in the area.

In its defense, Kokomo Key Properties responded that Hopkins was "engaged in criminal activities known to be dangerous on the subject premises, and therefore should be treated as having assumed the risk for his participation in such activities."

But "There was no evidence that Mr. Hopkins was doing anything other than washing his car," McCarron said.

The jury placed 75% of the responsibility for Hopkins' death on the car wash, and the other 25% on Hopkins himself.

When asked why the jury may have put partial blame on Hopkins, McCarron said he wasn't sure, but that surveillance video from across the street showed that Hopkins may have initiated contact with the shooter.

The jury returned damages in the amount of $3.75 million for each of Hopkins' two minor children. It also awarded an additional $9,000 for Hopkins' funeral expenses.

On May 13, Eugene Javon Patrick, 24, of Gainesville, was found guilty by an Alachua County jury of second-degree murder in Hopkins' death. Patrick was then sentenced by Judge James Colaw to life in prison.

Court records show that on April 25, Patrick requested to withdraw from a plea agreement reached with prosecutors on April 13 that required him to plead no contest to one count of manslaughter with a firearm. Under the agreement, Patrick would have been sentenced to 15 years in prison with 682 of credit for time served.

This article originally appeared on The Gainesville Sun: Alachua County jury awards $7.5M after murder at Swamp Car Wash