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 U.S. 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.
The story of how Grant ended up paralyzed began that Super Bowl Sunday, when Grant drove off from his 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.
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 3 a.m. 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. The death certificate worksheet lists his paralysis as the cause, attributing it to "physical assault with body slam."
Grant had been a proud Marine who enlisted at 18 in 1969, following the example of a favored uncle.
He settled in California after nearly a decade of active duty, continued to serve as a reservist, opened a trucking business, and met Ronda Hernandez, who would become his partner of 30 years.
By his early 60s, the more tired Grant got, the more confused he became. Doctors diagnosed him with early-onset dementia. He also had post-traumatic stress disorder and health issues from Agent Orange exposure during combat in Vietnam.
After the dementia diagnosis, Grant moved from California to Conyers, Georgia, to be near his brother and sister.
Hernandez watched Grant's mind begin to falter. By 2019, he would sometimes get lost running errands or forget to turn off the television — but he still remembered family.
Grant and Hernandez used to sit outside their house for hours, stargazing and talking.
"Whether he remembered anything or remembered me, we'd still be right here next to each other. We'd be sitting on the porch. He'd be smoking his pipe," she said. "I could still tuck him into bed, give him a kiss, say 'I love you.' I can't do that now."
Grant's death was among more than 1,000 across the United States that an investigation led by The Associated Press documented after police used tactics like the hip toss that, unlike guns, are meant to stop people without killing them.
More than 20 of those who died in these encounters, which also included weapons such as Tasers, were 65 or older. Many others were, like Grant, vulnerable due to a crisis brought on by their physical or mental health, or due to drug use.
The Birmingham Police Department's investigation concluded Officer Larry used excessive force at the hospital. The punishment: a 15-day suspension and retraining.
A civil lawsuit filed by Grant's brother in 2022 focuses on the need for better training for first responders on how to recognize and respond to vulnerable people. Birmingham attorneys Richard Rice and Johnathan Austin are representing Grant's brother, William Jenkins.
"If you can't stand up and say that what happened to Carl Grant was wrong, it just shows how much ground we have to cover to be able to really have a conversation about police accountability," Rice said.
A judge dismissed the case without addressing the allegations of excessive force. The city and the officer had argued they were not given notice that a lawsuit would be filed before a legal deadline. Jenkins' lawyers are appealing and the appeals court has ordered the parties to mediate.
Larry was no longer employed by the city as of September, the mayor's office said. He's now working as a part-time police officer in the suburbs outside Birmingham. Graysville Police Chief McKinsley Marbury said his department opted to give Larry a second chance and he's doing great.
"You always keep what someone does in the back of your head," Marbury said. He added: "There are so many things that we ask the Lord to forgive us for, that we probably are not worthy of forgiveness for. But He does. And if He can do it for us, we, as people, should be able to do it for someone else."
In court paperwork, Larry denied he committed an unprovoked assault on Grant at the hospital. His attorney declined to make him available for an interview.
Grant was Black. Larry is too. They were in a city central to the Civil Rights Movement.
Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin and Police Chief Scott Thurmond have spoken out about police brutality elsewhere. Neither agreed to talk about this case.
___
A history of police violence in America
Intro
1704: Start of slave patrols in South Carolina
1838: First police department
1865: Southern states establish first 'black codes'
Dec. 24, 1865: Ku Klux Klan formed
1877: Protesters and law enforcement clash in the Great Railroad Strike
May 4, 1886: Labor leaders, strikers protest police brutality in the Haymarket riots
Sept. 10, 1897: Immigrant miners are attacked in the Lattimer massacre
1904: Parchman Farm in Mississippi shifts from plantation to prison
1916: Start of Great Migration causes racial tensions
May 22, 1917: Ell Persons lynching
1919: The 'Red Summer' of 1919
1929: President Herbert Hoover establishes the National Commission on Law Observance and Enforcement
May 30, 1937: Chicago police shoot 10 protesters at Republic Steel Plant protests
1943: LAPD officers complicit in attacks against Mexican Americans during Zoot Suit Riots
1882–1968: Lack of law enforcement and government intervention during lynchings and murders
1956: COINTELPRO is founded to monitor radicals and activists
1960s: Rising militarization of police forces around the US
1963: Over 250,000 attend March on Washington
1965: Watts Riots highlight tensions between police and Black Americans
1965: Special Weapons and SWAT team established in LA
1967: Newark race riot begins due to injuries inflicted by police on John Smith
1967: Racial profiling and police brutality culminate in Detroit riots
1967: Federal Kerner Commission admits that ‘police action’ is the cause of urban rebellions of 1960s
1969: New York City riots after a police raid on Stonewall Inn
1971: Death of George Jackson in prison sparks controversy
June 18, 1971: War on Drugs campaign kicks off
1970s–1980s: Spike in urban crime perpetuates stereotypes and creates 'broken windows' policies
1991: Video of police officers beating Rodney King sparks outrage
1992: Riots begin in Los Angeles due to Rodney King beating and Latasha Harlins killing
1994: Congress passes the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994
1994: Violent Crime bill's "three strikes" provisions pave way for mass incarceration
1997: 1033 program helping to militarize police is created
Feb. 4, 1999: Police shooting of Amadou Diallo
2000: Prison population almost doubles in a single decade
2000s: School-to-prison pipeline emerges with increased police presence and zero-tolerance policies in schools
April 7, 2001: Cincinnati police officer shoots Timothy Thomas
2001–2013: NYC police target people of color due to 9/11 and expansion of 'stop and frisk'
2002: NYPD's Street Crimes Unit disbanded
2006: Police shootings of Sean Bell and Kathryn Harris Johnston further escalate tensions
2007: Under pressure, NYPD releases data showing racial disparities in its policing
Dec. 20, 2011: Police shooting of Anthony Lamar Smith
May 16, 2010: SWAT shooting of 7-year-old Aiyana Jones
2014: Tamir Rice, Eric Garner, and Michael Brown all die at the hands of police
Nov. 28, 2014: UN Committee against Torture condemns police brutality and excessive use of force by law enforcement in the US
2015: Deaths of Freddie Gray and shooting of Keith Childress Jr. raise questions
July 13, 2015: Sandra Bland is found dead after being arrested during a traffic stop
July 2016: Police shootings of Philando Castile and Alton Sterling happen just a day apart
September 2016: UN's Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent issues scathing report on police killings
2017–2020: Trump administration peels back Justice Department programs that investigate local police departments for racism and excessive force
May 2020: Deaths of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd reignite worldwide protests against police brutality and racism
Editor's note: This story is based on a 103-page report from the Birmingham Police Department; court files from the civil lawsuit filed by Grant's brother; Grant's military and medical records; police body-camera footage; hospital surveillance video; and interviews with Grant's partner, siblings, the lawyers for his estate and the Graysville, Alabama police chief.
___
McDermott reported from Providence, Rhode Island. Associated Press writers Jeff Martin in Atlanta and Holbrook Mohr in Jackson, Mississippi, contributed to this report.
___
This story is part of an ongoing investigation led by The Associated Press in collaboration with the Howard Center for Investigative Journalism programs and FRONTLINE (PBS). The investigation includes the Lethal Restraint interactive story, database and the documentary, "Documenting Police Use Of Force," premiering April 30 on PBS.
___
The Associated Press receives support from the Public Welfare Foundation for reporting focused on criminal justice. This story also was supported by Columbia University's Ira A. Lipman Center for Journalism and Civil and Human Rights in conjunction with Arnold Ventures. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
This family photo shows Carl Grant, his partner, Ronda Hernandez, and their dog, Charlie, at the house they shared in Conyers, Ga., in 2019. After Grant's dementia diagnosis, they moved from California to Georgia, to be near his brother and sister. (Michael Hernandez via AP)
In this family photo, Carl Grant prepares to cook in the home he shared with his partner, Ronda Hernandez, in Redlands, Calif., circa 2000. Grant’s death was among more than 1,000 across the United States that an investigation led by The Associated Press documented after police used “less-lethal force” instead of firearms. (Ronda Hernandez via AP)
This photo from the Birmingham Police Department shows Carl Grant in a bed with wounds on his head at the UAB Hospital in Birmingham, Ala., after police were called when he was at the porch of a stranger’s home on Feb. 2, 2020. Grant died nearly six months later. The death certificate worksheet lists his paralysis as the cause, attributing it to “physical assault with body slam.” (Birmingham Police Department via AP)
This family photo shows Carl Grant and his partner, Ronda Hernandez, and her children, Michael and Michelle, in a friend's backyard in California in the mid-1990s. (Family Photo via AP)
Relatives of Carl Grant, from left, his sister, Kathy Jenkins; brother, William Jenkins, and Grant’s partner, Ronda Hernandez, stand for a portrait in Birmingham, Ala., on Wednesday, June, 7, 2023. “We were robbed,” says Kathy Jenkins, whose anger has not subsided four years after Grant’s death. “It’s like somebody went in your house and just took something, and you were violated.” (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)
In this image from Birmingham Police Department body-camera video, Carl Grant lies on the floor at a hospital in Birmingham, Ala., on Feb. 3, 2020, as a police officer prepares to handcuff him. The Vietnam War veteran with dementia was taken to the hospital after trying to enter homes he thought were his, but were not. When he wouldn’t do as instructed at the hospital, an officer slammed him to the ground and damaged the spinal cord in Grant’s neck, paralyzing him. (Birmingham Police Department via AP)