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 For Robert Hinton, 2015 was supposed to be a year of new beginnings. In March, he was released from prison after serving time for a parole violation. In September, he was awarded $450,000 by New York City to settle a lawsuit against several jail guards who hogtied and severely beat him in 2012 while he was incarcerated at Rikers Island. 
 
 In the months since the settlement, Mr. Hinton had been making plans to buy a house someplace far from his Brooklyn neighborhood, where he could not seem to stay out of trouble. 
 
 In the end, he could not escape. 
 
 Early on Friday morning, Mr. Hinton, 28, was shot and killed outside a housing project in Brownsville, Brooklyn, not far from his own home in Bedford-Stuyvesant, police officials said. No arrests had been made by Friday evening, and investigators provided no other details about the circumstances of the shooting. 
 
 Mr. Hinton had a history of violence as a member of the Bloods gang; he had served time for attempted murder and had been in and out of prison since 2005. 
 
 He had hoped that the settlement he had received would break that cycle. His lawyer, Nicole Bellina, said that when she spoke with him a few days ago he was upbeat about the future. 
 
 “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,” she said. 
 
 Mr. Hinton’s beating was one of several recent cases that shed light on a culture of brutality and abuse of inmates at Rikers Island, and the subsequent outcry helped spur city officials to adopt sweeping changes there. 
 
 In his lawsuit, he described how in April 2012, five guards and a captain shackled his arms and legs, carried him into a solitary confinement cell and then beat him so savagely that he suffered a broken nose and a fractured vertebra. 
 
 Photos of Mr. Hinton — his face bloodied and bruised and his eyes swollen shut — circulated in the news media, including The New York Times. An administrative law judge described the beating as “brazen misconduct.” And in a rare move, the Correction Department chose to fire the guards involved. 
 
 Mr. Hinton had been moving on with his life, spending much of his time taking care of his mother at the home they shared in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Ms. Bellina said. He had expressed a desire to move out of New York and buy a house, possibly in Yonkers, she said. 
 
 Recently, Ms. Bellina added, he sent her a text message that read, “I pray I even live long enough to see some sort of happiness.” ||||| The settlement was signed Sept. 14, but Hinton had yet to receive it when he died, his lawyer said. It was unclear exactly when he would have received the money, but generally the city has a 90-day window to send the check, so he likely would have received it within the next three weeks.
– Robert Hinton had a chance to move on with his life. But the former inmate of Riker's Island—whose savage beating there by guards spawned a pending $450,000 settlement—was shot and killed Thursday night outside a housing project in Brooklyn, the Daily News reports. Hinton had just eaten Thanksgiving dinner with his family when the 28-year-old went home with his nephews and little sister, according to his aunt, Lynette Johnson. She says the family was still together when they heard news of his death. "It was devastating," says Johnson. "It doesn’t seem real. In the blink of eye you’re gone. He was a beautiful person." Another victim was shot in the leg and fled the scene, officials say. Police are still seeking the gunman. Hinton was just weeks from receiving his money over the beating he suffered at Riker's in April 2012, the New York Times reports. In his lawsuit, Hinton said a captain and five guards shackled and beat him, fracturing a vertebra and breaking his nose; all six were later fired for the attack. Hinton apparently hoped for a new start with the payout, but his mom, Parys Johnson, tells the Daily News that he "felt like something was going to happen to him." She says her son was likely "set up" by people who believed he already had the settlement money. Hinton has a pregnant girlfriend, but it's unclear who, if anyone, will receive the money. Hinton had been linked to the Bloods street gang and was serving time for shooting and injuring a man when the beating occurred. (Read about an innocent man who was "tortured" at Riker's and later killed himself.)