Deputies in Georgia by no means closed a patrol automobile door after placing a 28-year-old handcuffed girl within the again seat throughout an arrest earlier this month, authorities mentioned Wednesday. That girl, Brianna Marie Grier, fell out of the automobile whereas it was shifting and died days later from her accidents, based on police.
Grier was arrested at a house in Sparta, Georgia, on July 15, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) mentioned final week. She was put into the patrol automobile and was being pushed to the Hancock County Sheriff's Workplace when she fell out of the patrol automobile and suffered "important accidents," the GBI mentioned on the time.
She died of these accidents six days later, the GBI mentioned. It is unclear why she was initially taken into custody.
On Wednesday, the GBI mentioned interviews, physique digital camera footage and "mechanical checks" performed on the patrol automobile revealed that the rear passenger facet door of the automobile, close to the place Grier was sitting when she fell out, was "by no means closed" after she was positioned within the automobile.
Grier was handcuffed within the entrance of her physique and was not carrying a seatbelt, the GBI added.
The GBI mentioned that after her arrest, Grier "was on the bottom refusing to get in" the automobile close to the driving force's facet door and informed two deputies that "she was going to hurt herself."
One of many deputies then walked round to the opposite facet of the automobile and opened the rear passenger facet door, the GBI mentioned. The deputy then returned to the driving force's facet door, and each deputies put her within the automobile.
"The investigation reveals that the deputy thought he closed the rear passenger facet door," the GBI wrote in its launch. It didn't elaborate.
Physique digital camera footage confirmed that the deputies had no contact with Grier from the time she acquired into the automobile to the time she fell out, the GBI mentioned.
Grier's household, in the meantime, has employed distinguished lawyer Ben Crump, who scheduled a information convention for Friday. In an announcement Thursday, Crump alleged that Grier was arrested throughout a "psychological well being disaster."
"Brianna Grier was a wonderful younger mom who ought to nonetheless be alive," Crump mentioned. "It's the duty of legislation enforcement to maintain everybody of their custody secure and alive, together with when there's a psychological well being disaster."