A Houston area mom has filed a lawsuit against The Park at Sorrento Apartments in Baytown for what she calls “negligent acts” that led to her 16-year-old son’s death.
Yosha Hamilton claims that the apartment complex failed to provide proper safety measures, ignoring dozens of violent crimes that occurred on the property. In January 2023, Hamilton’s son, Shane, was shot and killed right in front of their family’s front door.
Just before the shooting, surveillance video shows a pick-up truck driving into the complex. According to police records, there was another shooting in the apartment complex in December 2022, and there have been more than 100 calls to 911 for violent incidents, including carjackings, home invasions, sexual assaults, and prior shootings in the last three years.
Hamilton’s attorneys, Kim Spurlock and Mo Aziz, claim that apartment management held meetings with residents who were asking for better security measures, such as working gates, security cameras, and off-duty police officers. However, despite reassurances from management, none of these measures were implemented. This, according to the attorneys, shows that the management placed profit over people’s lives.
Hamilton’s lawsuit aims to hold the owners of The Park at Sorrento Apartments accountable for Shane’s death and seeks to ensure that other families do not have to face similar tragedies. Hamilton hopes that her son will be remembered for who he was, a young man who loved football, basketball, his family, and was a good student.
As of now, Baytown police have yet to find the person responsible for Shane’s death and the reason behind the shooting. An official statement from The Park at Sorrento Apartments states that they have no comment about the case.
