Brianna Grier's family calls for justice at Atlanta funeral after her death in police custody

• Family of a woman who fell out of a Georgia police car called for justice at her funeral Thursday.
• The rear passenger door where Brianna Grier was seated was never closed, according to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.

The family of Brianna Taylor, a Black woman who died after she fell out of a police car in July, called for action at her funeral in Atlanta on Thursday.

"I'm gonna miss Brianna and I do want justice for her murder," said Mary Grier, Brianna's mother.

Grier died after she fell from a moving Hancock County Sheriff's Office patrol vehicle on July 21 during an arrest, according to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, which is probing the case.

Grier's parents called the police to their home when she was in the throes of a mental health crisis, according to a statement from civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who is representing the family.

Grier's father Marvin Grier said his family expected Brianna to be safe in police custody when they called the cops to their home in July.

"We called the police for help, not death," Marvin Grier said at his daughter's funeral on Thursday.

The county does not have a behavioral response team, according to the local sheriff's office.

Last year, Insider spoke to five mothers from around the country who each called the emergency line to get help for their sons. Instead of summoning relief, those calls triggered a deadly response by armed police officers.

Police investigation is ongoing

Investigators determined that the rear passenger side door of the Hancock County Sheriff's office patrol car where Grier was sitting was never closed, according to the GBI. Grier was handcuffed and not put in a seatbelt, according to the GBI, which confirmed to Insider that it's investigation into Grier's death is still active and ongoing.

Grier, 28, died of blunt force trauma, according to an independent autopsy her family had performed by Dr. Allecia Wilson, the director of autopsy and forensic services at the University of Michigan. The autopsy concluded that Grier suffered two fractures on the left side of the head and multiple brain hemorrhages.

The GBI release 10 minutes of body camera footage related to Grier's death on July 29.

The footage shows Grier saying to officers "I'm not drunk. I haven't had anything to drink," before officers place her under arrest. Before Grier is placed in the patrol car, the footage shows her say that she will hang herself if she is put inside the vehicle.

Around one minute after officers begin to drive away, the footage shows an officer stop his car and get out of the vehicle. The officer approaches Grier, who is face down on the side of the road, and says her name before tapping her on the side, soliciting no response.

The footage then shows the officer radio to the patrol car behind him that they need an ambulance. The officer in the second car approaches Grier, while the first officer goes to close the rear passenger door of his car, the footage shows.

When the first officer returns to Grier, the second officer says, "How did she jump out the car? Don't supposed to be unlocked from the back," the footage shows.

Too few choices

Grier's death mimics many other calls families place to 9-1-1 seeking help for their loved ones experiencing a behavioral health crisis.

Getting adult children into treatment against their will is difficult and often requires presenting evidence to a judge that they are a danger to themselves or others.

In many communities around the country, the families of people who experience crises are left with few options outside calling police.

When those interactions go badly — through an interaction that ends in a police shooting or a death in custody — the family members who summoned police to the scene are left with lifelong guilt and loss, according to Alexander Tsai, a psychiatrist and researcher at Massachusetts General Hospital.

"The debris and wreckage that leaves behind for the family members who are essentially survivors, who may themselves feel like they had a hand in contributing to the death of a loved one — this survivorship is one of the most under-recognized sources of mental-health disparities in the country," Tsai told Insider last year. "I think in this country we put too much on the backs of the families put in these types of situations, where they feel like they have to basically make up for gaps in the system because the system failed them."

Some cities, like Eugene, Oregon, have developed non-police units to respond to mental-health crises. In Eugene, people can call a number and have trained, unarmed emergency medical technicians and clinicians respond. It's called Cahoots, short for Crisis Assistance Helping Out on the Streets, and the city has been using it for more than 30 years.

The White Bird Clinic, which runs the Cahoots program, reported that in 2019 it received 24,000 calls and required police support only 150 times.

Police departments in other cities, including Los Angeles and New York, have announced similar pilot programs.

The New York City program that dispatches social workers on mental health calls instead of police officers, had a successful first season. Data from July 2021 showed the non-police response teams were more successful in getting medical assistance for people experiencing mental health problems and led to fewer hospitalizations.