A local prosecutor in Georgia says no crime was committed in the death of Brianna Grier, the handcuffed 28-year-old Black woman experiencing a mental health crisis who investigators say fell out of a moving cop car after an officer left the door open.
But in an interview, District Attorney T. Wright Barksdale III also confirmed to The Daily Beast that he personally knew Lt. Marlin Primus, one of the sheriff’s deputies who arrested her. This kind of professional relationship is common, but is also why the national trend has long been toward probes of deaths in police custody being referred to independent, outside prosecutors to avoid the perception of bias.
“I know him very well, on a professional level,” Barksdale told The Daily Beast Tuesday. “I’ve never had lunch with him. I’ve never gone to church with him. I don’t know where he lives. I don’t... I don’t know his wife's name. So I want to make sure that that’s clear.”
ADVERTISEMENT
Barksdale, whose decision was first reported by the Union-Recorder, said that his office recently tried a police officer for murder. He also drew a distinction between traditional use-of-force cases often referred to independent third parties and this one, in which a woman died in police custody.
The prosecutor stressed that the deputies who arrested Grier lacked training and tools needed to support people in mental-health crisis like Grier. He also said his conclusion about the Grier case opinion was shared by investigators with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI), who have yet to announce their findings, but who confirmed to The Daily Beast that they had concluded their probe.
Barksdale’s decision came three months after Grier, a mother of two, died from head injuries she sustained in the custody of Hancock Sheriff’s Office Deputies Primus—the sheriff’s brother—and Timothy Legette. State investigators with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation previously indicated that not only did deputies fail to close the door in question, but that Grier was not secured with a seat belt, even though she was handcuffed.
In order to come to this conclusion, Barksdale said, he had reviewed the independent report by the GBI.
The report, he said, included key body-camera video from Primus—who originally said in his own report of that day that he closed the door—interviews with the deputies, and the findings of tests on the functionality of the patrol car’s door, which Barksdale said GBI found was “not properly closed.”
The District Attorney—who told the Union-Recorder that Primus “would never hurt anyone in a million years”—also said that he had conversations with GBI agents about the case.
“Based off of the facts, based off of the laws that are on the books, we believe, without any question, no criminal acts occurred,” he told The Daily Beast.
Neither Brianna Grier’s legal team nor her family immediately responded to requests for comment.
In a statement, Nelly Miles, spokesperson for the GBI, told The Daily Beast, “We have given the case file to the D.A. and are in the process of closing the case.”
Miles declined to immediately confirm or provide further details about the probe’s findings, referring further questions to Barksdale.
A spokesperson for the Georgia State Attorney General’s office indicated the agency did not expect to receive a copy of the report in question.
The events that led to Grier’s death began when her mother called 911 for help.
Her daughter had recently been diagnosed with schizophrenia. But instead of calling for medical aid as had been done in the past, the family said, deputies who arrived at the family’s door arrested the mother of twins for drunkenness and disorderly conduct, reassuring the family that they would send her to medical care in the morning.
Less than a minute into the drive away from her parents’ home, the 110 pound woman tumbled —handcuffed— out of the patrol car’s door and onto the road. Six days later, Grier died in an Atlanta hospital.
The 28-year-old sustained multiple skull fractures and injuries, which caused her brain to be so swollen it shifted in her skull, according to an independent medical review commissioned by family.
Initially, the Hancock County Sheriff’s Office claimed to Grier’s parents that the woman had kicked open the door herself, the family said. That was later refuted by GBI’s initial findings—that the deputies had left the door open—and fueled national outrage.
What has followed is a months-long fight by Grier’s family, backed by a group of prominent civil rights activists and heavy-weight lawyers, for transparency and justice.
“These officers were responsible for the safety of Brianna, a mother of two children who are now orphaned. Her life mattered,” a spokesperson for the legal team told The Daily Beast in a statement, adding, “The Grier family is deeply disappointed at the cronyism displayed in the District Attorney’s statement, which clearly shows favoritism for his friend.”
For his part, Barksdale emphasized that he thought the problem was one of resources for law-enforcement dealing with mental-health situations.
“I want this to get out there because I don’t want Miss Grier and her death to go in vain,” he said, adding that “there is an urgency in trying to get training for law enforcement. There’s an urgency in trying to get competitive wages for law enforcement. And there is an urgency in trying to get more resources devoted to mental health... to help keep those individuals safe.”
The prosecutor went on to say that while he did not expect another authority to take on the case, he welcomed outside scrutiny and attention on what went wrong that night.
“If somebody came to me and said, ‘We want to look at this...’—I mean, really, take a look at it!” he urged.
