Family of man shot and killed at Macon gas mart sues store in wrongful-death claim
The family of a man who was shot and killed last year at an east Macon convenience store has filed a wrongful-death lawsuit in Bibb County Superior Court claiming the gas mart’s lack of “reasonable security measures” contributed to his slaying.
Gregory Lamar Watkins Jr., a father of two who had just turned 27, died the night of April 18, 2021, after he was shot inside the Quick Serve store at 584 Emery Highway.
The store sits at the corner of Womack Street, a block or so east of well-traveled intersection at Coliseum Drive.
A 21-year-old suspect was arrested and jailed a few days after the shooting. He was charged with murder and four counts of aggravated assault.
The wrongful-death lawsuit, filed Aug. 10 on behalf of Watkins’ young children, contends that the store’s operators, Quick Serve Emery LLC, profited from coin-operated gambling machines there, which Watkins was thought to have been playing around the time he was shot.
The lawsuit claims the store’s operators were in violation of the state’s Racketeering and Corrupt Organizations Act, allegedly running “an illegal gambling operation” and “paying out cash to customers” when the customers collected winnings from the gaming machines.
The plaintiffs cite “numerous violent crimes” at the store and “no security personnel or reasonable security measures,” adding that the establishment “failed to exercise ordinary care to keep customers ... safe.”
In February, two men were shot and killed in a car parked outside the store.
The lawsuit seeks unspecified punitive damages and asks for a jury trial.
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