The daughter of Johnny Hollman said she became physically ill watching body camera video of the 62-year-old church deacon screaming out for help and repeatedly saying he could not breathe during a fatal encounter with an Atlanta police officer.
Hollman died on Aug. 10 after former Officer Kiran Kimbrough used a stun gun on him and then handcuffed him following a minor traffic accident. Kimbrough was fired by the Atlanta Police Department because he did not follow standard operating procedures, police said Tuesday.
Arnitra Fallins, her family and their attorney met with the city last month to view footage of the incident.
"It was very heartbreaking," Fallins said Wednesday. Her father had called her during the encounter.
"I might have made it through two minutes [of the video] because once I saw my daddy dialing my number and once this officer grabbed him, that pissed me off, it did something to me to the point where it literally made me sick to my stomach," she said. "It was very disturbing."
The family has called for the footage to be publicly released. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation has asked the police department not to release the video until it completes its investigation.
Relatives said that Hollman was driving home from Bible study at a daughter's house and taking dinner to his wife when he was involved in a car accident. He called police to the scene, the family said.
The Atlanta Police Department said in its initial statement that Hollman became "agitated and uncooperative" when the officer found him to be the at-fault driver and issued him a citation. Authorities said he "resisted" as the officer attempted to take him into custody and a struggle ensued.
After several minutes of struggling, the officer used his stun gun and then placed Hollman in handcuffs, according to police. It was then that the officer realized that Hollman was unresponsive and requested EMS.
An autopsy determined Hollman’s manner of death was a homicide. The medical examiner said heart disease contributed to his death.
Mawuli Davis, an attorney for the family, disputed police's version of what happened and said the video showed that Kimbrough "escalated the situation and that his actions were both unreasonable and illegal."
In the video, according to Davis, Kimbrough approached Hollman and told him that he was getting a citation. Hollman told Kimbrough that he had the right-of-way and showed the officer the damage to his vehicle, Davis said. When the officer told Hollman that he was at fault for the crash, Hollman asked him to call for a sergeant, according to Davis.
The attorney said that the officer ignored Hollman's request and instead instructed him to sign the citation. That's when Hollman called Fallins, Davis said.
As Hollman dialed his daughter's number, Kimbrough allegedly reached for him.
"As he’s reaching for him, Deacon Hollman says, 'I’ll sign the ticket.’ And then he repeats it, ‘I’ll sign the ticket. I’ll sign the ticket.’ The officer, ignoring his willingness to comply, does a leg sweep and takes him to the ground," Davis said. "And Deacon Hollman is saying, ‘I can’t breathe. My asthma is acting up on me, I can’t breathe.’"
Fallins described hearing her father plead with the officer.
"I could hear him screaming and hollering for help. I could hear him saying he couldn’t breathe. I could hear him saying his asthma was acting up," she said. "Then it got to a point on my drive over there that I didn’t hear my father yell out for help anymore. In my spirit, I felt like something went wrong."
Davis said at one point during the altercation, Kimbrough "is on top" of Hollman and "strikes him with a closed fist." He said they counted Hollman say as many as 16 times, "I can't breathe."
Police declined to comment on the case, saying in a statement Wednesday that the investigation is ongoing and "there is nothing further to release at this time."
Davis accused Kimbrough of being "overly aggressive" and said the family wants the officer to be charged.
"We believe that what we witnessed on that video is murder. It was an unjustifiable homicide," he said.
The family is still struggling with the death.
"We’re still hurting. We shouldn’t be going to the cemetery. We should be sitting around laughing and talking with our daddy, we should still be hearing ‘I love you, baby,'" Fallins said, calling her father a "God-fearing man" and "a leader in his community."
"I don’t want people to get distracted by what the APD and the City is putting out about him, about being combative, about being aggressive, that’s not in my daddy’s character. That’s not who he was and that’s not what he was presenting that night he was killed."