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.