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Brianna Grier, 28, was experiencing a mental health episode on July 15 when her mother called police to assist with the matter, civil rights attorney Ben Crump said at a news conference Friday.
Crump, who is representing the Grier family, said Grier had a history of mental health crises and the family had called police several times in the past.
“When they used to come out to the house they’d call an ambulance service,” Grier’s father Marvin Grier said. “The ambulance service would come out and they would take her to the hospital to get some help.”
“But this time they only called the police, and the police didn’t bring the ambulance with them, even though, Ms. Mary (Brianna’s mom) clearly stated she was having an episode,” Crump explained.
Crump said Hancock County Sheriff’s deputies came into the home, handcuffed Grier and placed her in the back of a patrol car to take her into custody for allegedly resisting arrest.
In body camera video released by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, Grier asks deputies to give her a breathalyzer test and repeatedly tells officers she is not drunk. According to a time stamp on the video, Grier was placed in the patrol car shortly before 1 a.m. on July 15.
Grier then yells to officers saying she’s going to hang herself if she is placed in the car. They proceed to place her in handcuffs and attempt to place her in a squad car but when she resists further, an officer is seen unholstering his taser.
When Grier sees this, she yells at officers saying they can tase her, and that she doesn’t care. The officer replies, saying he’s not going to tase her.
The video shows the officer putting the Taser away and then walking away from the rear driver’s side door. When the officer returns, he is seen lifting Grier off the ground and putting her in the back seat of the patrol car.
The body camera video fails to show if officers opened, closed or had any interaction with the rear passenger side door, but an officer is heard asking another officer if the door is closed.
GBI investigators concluded Wednesday that “the rear passenger side door of the patrol car, near where Grier was sitting, was never closed,”…
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