The family of Brianna Grier is demanding answers after the 28-year-old was taken into police custody and died after she fell out of a moving patrol car.
Civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who is representing the family, and his team held a press conference on Friday, July 29, in Decatur, Georgia.
Attorney Crump was joined by Brianna’s mother, Mary, her father, Marvin, her sister, Lottie Grier, and NAACP President Gerald Griggs.
During the press conference, Attorney Crump detailed the inconsistencies in the reports coming from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI).
Marvin Grier recently gave a very descriptive interview detailing the events that led to his daughter’s death.
On July 15, Briana’s parents called the Hancock County police to assist them with their daughter, who was having a mental health crisis.
According to Brianna’s parents, every time they called Hancock County police, in the past, they would arrive with EMS paramedics, but this time they did not.
Marvin Grier said his daughter, Brianna, had been diagnosed with schizophrenia years ago, and she was prescribed medication.
He said she was at his home in Sparta, Georgia, on July 14, visiting her 3-year-old twin girls, who lived with their grandparents.
He said Brianna left the house and returned in crisis after midnight.
He revealed that she told him she would use illegal drugs to cope with her schizophrenia because the medication she was prescribed wasn’t helping.
She had told me a while back that when she did that [use drugs], that would help her because the medication she was getting from the doctors weren’t doing her no good.
But, he did not know if she used drugs that night before returning to his house.
I don’t know what got her that way, but this was not our first rodeo with her.
He said he and Brianna’s mother had called 911 in the past while Brianna was in that state, but this was the first time paramedics didn’t come with the police and help her get treatment in a medical setting.
Marvin said when sheriff’s deputies arrived at his house, they asked his daughter several times if she had been drinking, and she said “no.”
When they told her they smelled alcohol on her breath, she admitted she had been drinking.
He said when deputies started to handcuff Brianna she said, “No, no, no, no. I haven’t done anything for y’all to arrest me. I’m not going to jail.”
And he and his family told Brianna to let them help her.
We said, ‘Brianna, let them help you.
He said the deputies put Brianna in the backseat of the patrol car.
Police returned to their home in the early morning hours of July 15, claiming Brianna “kicked the back door in and jumped out” of the patrol car, sustained a head injury, and was taken to the hospital.
According to police training expert Geoffrey Alpert, a professor at the University of South Carolina, patrol cars are “ALWAYS supposed to be locked from the inside.”
Marvin Grier agrees, and he and his family do not believe Briana kicked the patrol door open.
Everybody knows that no one can just kick a door open on a police cruiser. I never heard nobody else say it had happened.
And with her hands behind her back? Something’s not right here.”
Doctors told the Grier family that Brianna suffered two skull fractures.
She didn’t wake up for several days, and she was pronounced dead on Thursday (July 21), six days after being arrested and placed in the back of the patrol car.
The doctors tell you there’s nothing else they can do… she’s brain dead.
Then she’s gone.
Brianna Grier was 28 years old when she passed.
Marvin Grier and his family are still seeking answers for his twin granddaughters.
One day they’re going to ask, ‘Where Momma? We don’t see Momma no more.’ What can we tell them?…
We’ll just tell them, ‘Momma was sick and the doctor couldn’t do no more for her.’”
Marvin encourages other parents to “Love your kids.”
We were here for Brianna every way we could.
But then this happened, and we thought we were doing the right thing.
Every other time, it went okay. But this time, it didn’t.
At the press conference today, attorney Crump stated how much this tragedy reminds him of Breonna Taylor, and he called Brianna Grier Georgia’s Brianna.
He also led chants of “Justice for Brianna” as he talked about how senseless her death was and how unbelievable the police explanation was.
Yet again we have another African American citizen killed in just an unbelievable way while in the custody of the police,
We won’t let them sweep your baby daughter’s death under the rug.
NAACP President Gerald Griggs also spoke at the conference:
To the Hancock County sheriff, it’s time to be transparent. It’s time to be accountable. To the GBI, it’s time for y’all to meet with this family. To the governor, it’s time for you to recognize, again, that Georgia has a police accountability problem.
Marvin Grier expressed his families desire to uncover the truth of what really happened to their daughter:
What we’re trying to do, we’re trying to get answers of what really happened. That’s all we want to know. We ain’t trying to start no problem.
The GBI is still investigating Brianna’s death.
A new report claims the police officers left one of the rear patrol car doors open while they were driving to the police station, and Brianna fell out.
Attorney Ben Crump and his team requested to see all documents and videos from the GBI’s investigation at the press conference.
Watch the press conference below:
We send our sincere condolences to the family and friends of Brianna Grier.
#JusticeForBrianna
Sources: The Washington Post, and Yahoo News
