Lawsuit claims HHI apartments’ faulty applicant screening led to 2020 assault of child
A Beaufort County mother is suing the Hilton Head Gardens apartments after her 14-year-old daughter was reportedly attacked by a tenant in the parking lot, claiming the leasing company’s negligent screening practices contributed to the 2020 assault and other violent crimes on the property.
Court documents say the 14-year-old girl was visiting a friend at the Gardens apartments on Dec. 30, 2020 when she stopped to socialize with 26-year-old tenant Katara Greene in the parking lot. Greene suddenly became “confrontational and verbally abusive” with the girl, knocking her to the ground and causing her head to slam into the concrete.
The teen suffered a concussion and now deals with “debilitating” and “persistent” post-concussive headaches, leaving her bed-bound multiple days a month, according to the court summons.
Court documents claim Hilton Head Gardens enabled the attack by negligently leasing an apartment to Greene, despite her long criminal history. Judicial records show Greene had previously been convicted for third-degree assault and battery, credit card fraud, neglect in reporting a crime, giving false information to law enforcement, one drug charge and a number of traffic violations.
Hilton Head Gardens evicted Greene from the complex in November of 2021, judicial records show.
Filed Thursday in Beaufort County civil court, the lawsuit alleges Hilton Head Gardens has been “plagued by violent crime” for the past decade, citing several other incidents that took place at the complex: an August 2020 shooting that left one hospitalized, the murder of a Bluffton teen in December 2018 or a young child being shot in broad daylight Aug. 21, 2017.
Calls and emails seeking comments were made Thursday to representatives from Hilton Head Gardens and the property’s parent companies — Hilton Head Investment Properties, L.P., Frye Properties, Inc. and Frye-HH, LLC. There were no responses by Friday’s deadline.
Bryan Schivera, a Savannah attorney representing the injured girl’s mother, declined to comment on the lawsuit.
