The family of a Georgia woman who died last year after she fell from a moving patrol car has filed a civil rights lawsuit, saying sheriff’s deputies improperly arrested her and ultimately caused her death, attorneys announced Wednesday.
The deputies who put Brianna Grier in the back of a patrol car to take her to the Hancock County Sheriff’s Office failed to close the rear passenger-side door before driving away, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation found. The 28-year-old woman suffered brain trauma when she hit her head in the July 15 fall and was in a coma until she died July 21 at an Atlanta hospital, her family said.
The federal wrongful death lawsuit filed Tuesday accuses Hancock County Sheriff Tomlyn Primus, his brother Lt. Marlin Primus and Deputy Timothy Legette of gross negligence leading to Grier’s death. A message seeking comment was left with a person who answered the phone in the sheriff’s office Wednesday.
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