Woman shot in head sues Hilton Head Gardens apartments as ‘high crime’ concerns swell
A Beaufort County woman who was shot in the head in the Hilton Head Gardens parking lot earlier this summer is suing the apartments’ leasing company, adding to a growing list of allegations against the property as a hotbed of violent crime.
32-year-old Ashley Thomas tried to break up a couples’ dispute in the complex’s parking lot the evening of June 9 when the man, Hilton Head resident Bernard Garvin, shot her in the head, according to the Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office. Thomas was rushed to Savannah’s Memorial Health University Medical Center and later released, while Garvin is still wanted by police for attempted murder.
Filed Thursday in Beaufort County civil court, the lawsuit refers to the Gardens apartments as a “high-crime area,” alleging management failed to prevent numerous violent incidents by means of inadequate security measures, a lack of working surveillance cameras and a failure to warn residents about the property’s history of violent crime.
This isn’t the first time the Gardens’ proximity to crime has landed the property in legal trouble. In June, a Beaufort County mother sued the apartments for renting units to applicants with problematic criminal histories, which led to a tenant attacking her 14-year-old daughter in the parking lot and slamming her head into the concrete. Both a faulty screening system and lackluster security have left the property “plagued by violent crime,” according to the court summons.
That lawsuit was transferred in late July to the U.S. District Court for South Carolina, judicial records show.
Recent violent crimes that took place at or near the Hilton Head Gardens include:
Nov. 2, 2022: A tenant brandishing a rifle and threatening several people in the apartments’ parking lot was arrested after an hours-long standoff with police, ending when a SWAT team broke down the door to his apartment.
March 16: A Gardens resident was walking through her unit’s breezeway when she was robbed of her iPhone by her neighbor and another woman, both armed, who demanded the phone and passcode.
July 21: An 18-year-old Hardeeville resident was with a small group in the apartments’ parking lot when about eight gunshots rang out, sending him to the hospital with a bullet wound. The suspected shooter, a 17-year-old Burton teen, was detained Aug. 12 after police found him trespassing inside a vacant Gardens unit.
Calls left Friday afternoon for Thomas’ defense attorney and Hilton Head Gardens management were not returned by deadline.
