A woman has died after falling out of a police vehicle in Sparta, Georgia, on the way to the sheriff’s office in Hancock County.
Brianna Marie Grier, 28, was taken into custody on 15 July after the emergency services received a call from her home, located on Hickory Grove Church Road, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) said in a statement.
“Grier was arrested at the home,” the GBI said. “While deputies were taking Grier to the Hancock County Sheriff’s Office, Grier fell out of a patrol car and sustained significant injuries.”
She died on Thursday at Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta at around 1pm because of the injuries she sustained in the fall.
“Hancock County Sheriff Terrell Primus asked the GBI’s regional investigate office in Milledgeville to investigate on July 15 following the initial incident,” the bureau added.
The authorities said that an autopsy will be conducted and that the GBI’s investigation continues.
While the GBI didn’t state why Ms Grier had been taken into custody, WMAZ reported earlier that the family said that she had suffered a schizophrenic episode between Thursday 14 July and Friday 15 July, leading her mother to call for help.
Two deputies came to the home between 12am and 1am, putting Ms Grier in handcuffs and placing her in the back of their police vehicle.
Ms Grier’s parents, Mary and Marvin Grier, were visited by Hancock County Sheriff Terrell Primus, who told them that Ms Grier had been airlifted to the Atlanta hospital after suffering a head injury.
The sheriff told the parents that Ms Grier had kicked one of the car doors open, WMAZ reported. She suffered two skull fractures, leaving her in a coma.
Before her death, Ms Grier’s mother told WMAZ that if she “had known it would turn out like this, God knows I wouldn’t have called them to come and get her”.
“I broke down and cried”, Mary Grier said, referring to the moment she saw her daughter in a coma.
The 28-year-old’s father told WMAZ that they were told that she had kicked the door open and “jumped” out of the vehicle.
Mary Grier told the local station that she’s sceptical of that version of events.
“If she got out of the car, they had to have let her out of the car”, she said. “That’s my interpretation because in a police car you can’t open the door from the inside so it had to have been opened from the outside.”
Mr Grier said all they were trying to do was “find answers” about what happened to Ms Grier.
