The family of a Georgia woman who died last year after she fell from a moving patrol car has filed a civil rights lawsuit, saying sheriff’s deputies improperly arrested her and ultimately caused her death, attorneys announced Wednesday.

The deputies who put Brianna Grier in the back of a patrol car to take her to the Hancock County Sheriff’s Office failed to close the rear passenger-side door before driving away, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation found. The 28-year-old woman suffered brain trauma when she hit her head in the July 15 fall and was in a coma until she died July 21 at an Atlanta hospital, her family said.

Ben Crump. (Courtesy photo) Ben Crump. (Courtesy photo)