- Brianna Grier, 28, died after falling out of a police patrol car while handcuffed.
- An investigation found that one of the rear car doors was never closed.
- Grier's family has demanded answers about the failures that led to her death.
A Georgia woman died after falling out of a police patrol car while handcuffed, investigators said Wednesday.
Investigators said Brianna Marie Grier, 28, who was placed in the backseat without a seatbelt and with her hands cuffed in front of her, sustained "significant injuries" and died in hospital six days later.
After conducting interviews and reviewing body camera footage, investigators from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) said that one of the car's rear doors "was never closed."
Grier, a Black woman, was arrested at a home in Sparta on July 15 after her family called 911 while she was having a mental health crisis, her family told The Daily Beast.
She had been experiencing increasingly troublesome symptoms of schizophrenia, according to her family, who told the outlet that they worried she had stopped taking her medication.
When deputies smelled alcohol on Grier's breath, they decided to arrest her, her family alleged to the outlet. Police have not disclosed why she was taken into custody.
Investigators said that Grier refused to get into the patrol car during her arrest and threatened to harm herself.
As two Hancock County Sheriff's Office deputies attempted to get her into the car, one walked around and opened the other rear passenger side door as well and failed to close it before driving off.
Investigators said that the deputy incorrectly "thought he closed the rear passenger side door." The GBI said its investigation remains active and ongoing.
Grier's parents have expressed grief over their daughter's death while calling for answers.
"We're trying to get answers of what really happened … We ain't trying to start no problem," a visibly emotional Marvin Grier, her father, said during a Friday news conference, per The Guardian.
The family has retained prominent civil rights lawyer Ben Crump to investigate what failures led to Grier falling out of the car.
"Yet again we have another African American citizen killed in just an unbelievable way while in the custody of the police," Crump said at the conference, according to The Guardian.
"We won't let them sweep your baby daughter's death under the rug," he said to Grier's parents.
Grier leaves behind her twin three-year-old daughters, per The Daily Beast.
Hancock County Sheriff's Office did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.