Vietnam veteran, 68, with dementia died from being body-slammed by Alabama ... trends now
When Carl Grant awoke from emergency surgery and couldn't move, he apologized to family gathered around his hospital bed.
In the fog of dementia, the US Marine Corps veteran thought he'd been paralyzed in the Vietnam War.
The truth: It was February 2020, he was 68, and a police officer had wrecked the spinal cord in his neck by slamming him onto an emergency room floor.
Grant's family decided not to correct him. He was already confused enough.
'We left it like that, we didn't know how he'd react,' his sister, Kathy Jenkins, recalled.
Carl Grant in bed in UAB Hospital hospital in Birmingham, Alabama, after he awoke from surgery, paralyzed from the neck down. The cuts on his forehead are from being pushed down porch stairs by the same officer who destroyed his spinal cord
Birmingham Police bodycam just after Grant was body-slammed on the floor of the hospital by police, before they turned over his limp body and handcuffed him
The story of how Grant ended up paralyzed began that Super Bowl Sunday, February 2, when Grant drove off from his Conyers, Georgia, home to shop for groceries.
It was to be a quick trip, so he left his cellphone at home and the heater on. Along the way, Grant became disoriented and turned his Kia Optima onto Interstate 20, driving west into the fading light.
More than two hours later, he was in Birmingham, Alabama, using his keys in the dark to try to unlock the door to a stranger's house. It was a one story brick home, just like his.
The owner called 911. Grant assured responding officers that this was home. They handcuffed Grant, but realized he wasn't a burglar — he truly thought he lived there. One officer recognized signs of dementia.
Back at the precinct, a sergeant would tell officers they should have called medics for an evaluation and notified a supervisor. Instead, police told Grant to move along.
He did and, about an hour later and less than half a mile away, officers responding to a burglary call found Grant sitting in a porch chair. Again Grant insisted he was home, and could prove it with paperwork inside.
Grant stood up and turned toward the front door. Body-camera video shows Officer Vincent Larry telling Grant he couldn't enter and then shoving him down the porch steps.
Officer Vincent Larry (pictured) was the policeman who pushed Grant down the porch stairs, arrested him, took him to hospital for the head injury, then threw him to the ground in the ER
This family photo shows Carl Grant, his partner, Ronda Hernandez, and their dog, Charlie, at the house they shared in Conyers, Georgia, in 2019. After Grant's dementia diagnosis, they moved from California to Georgia, to be near his brother and sister
In this family photo, Carl Grant prepares to cook in the home he shared with his partner, Ronda Hernandez, in Redlands, California circa 2000
Grant was facedown on the ground as Larry and other officers struggled to handcuff him. As they did, Grant cried out, 'Call the police!'
These officers also began to recognize signs of confusion — Grant couldn't tell them the day of the week or year.
A sergeant asked Larry if they should take Grant into protective custody. Larry continued with the arrest, saying Grant assaulted him.
Larry would write in his report Grant struck him with a closed fist, though he later told internal police investigators the shove caused Grant to turn and punch as he fell.
Larry went with Grant to the University of Alabama at Birmingham Hospital to be treated for a forehead gash from the fall.
That took a few hours. Now it was 3am Grant stepped out of an exam room, the officer wrote in his report, and told Larry he was going to charge his cellphone – the one his mind didn't grasp was nearly 200 miles away.
Larry wrote that he told Grant to stay because they would soon be discharged, but Grant refused.
Hospital surveillance video shows Larry reach for Grant's arm and flip him over in what the police investigation described as a 'hip toss' not taught at the academy. Grant landed on his back.
A nurse estimated his head bounced four inches off the floor. His body was limp.
Larry rolled Grant over to his stomach and handcuffed him. It was the third time he had been restrained in six hours.
Grant died almost six months later on July 24, 2020. The death certificate worksheet lists his paralysis as the cause, attributing it to 'physical assault with body slam.'
Birmingham Police Department body-camera video of Carl Grant on the porch of a stranger's home in Birmingham, Alabama, after police were called there on February 2, 2020
Grant, due to his dementia, thought the house was his, despite living two hours' drive
