The parents of Brianna Grier called the Sparta, Georgia police Thursday night when their daughter showed up at their house after midnight in the depths of a schizophrenic episode, hoping that police could help control her, the Washington Post reports.

The police took Brianna away in handcuffs, presumably to give her a night in a cell to calm down.  Instead, her parents got a call later in the morning telling them that Brianna was dead from injuries after falling out of the police car as it was traveling down the road.

Grier’s parents knew she was self-medicating with illegal drugs, saying that they helped control her mental illness better than the prescribed medications she was given by doctors.  That night, she had also been drinking, and police ostensibly arrested her for drunkenness. 

Grier’s parents called 9-1-1 hoping that paramedics would be called to the scene, but police arrived instead.  Police said they would hold her overnight so she could seek medical treatment in the morning.  Instead, she’s dead.

The Georgia Bureau of Investigation has open an investigation into the case, specifically regarding police conduct with the detainee.  Questions arose about how a handcuffed detainee was able to open the rear door of a squad car, and if the police officers adhered to operational protocols of securing a detainee in the back of the car with a seatbelt.

Police claim Breanna kicked in the back door of the vehicle as it was driving and jumped out of the car.  “Everybody knows that no one can just kick a door open on a police cruiser. I never heard nobody else say it had happened,” Grier’s father told The Post. “And with her hands behind her back? Something’s not right here.”