Family and friends of Johnny Hollman tightly gripped dozens of white and blue balloons Tuesday evening. In a unified chorus, the crowd yelled, “I love you, Johnny,” and, all at once, released their grasps.
Heads all across Dr. Mary Shy Scott Memorial Park tilted upward, watching the balloons drift away for a few moments in solemn remembrance of the 62-year-old father and church deacon who died days earlier after an encounter with Atlanta police.
“The family is grieving. This is a very difficult time for them. They are overwhelmed with grief right now as you can see tonight,” the family’s attorney, Mawuli Davis, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution at a vigil coordinated by the Lively Stones of God Ministries, where Hollman served as chairman of deacons for 15 years.
“When they gather, the emotion is difficult because of what happened to their father,” Davis said. “And they feel and believe that he should have been able to make it home.”
Hollman was two minutes from his home Thursday night when he was involved in a wreck in southwest Atlanta, and he became unresponsive as an Atlanta police officer tried to take him into custody. He later died at Grady Memorial Hospital.
Credit: Channel 2 Action News
Credit: Channel 2 Action News
Davis said Tuesday his law firm is looking to fill several gaps in the timeline leading to the man’s death, the cause of which has not been determined.
The wreck happened at around 11:20 p.m. Thursday at the intersection of Joseph E. Lowery Boulevard and Cunningham Place. Atlanta police determined that Hollman was at fault and said he became agitated when an officer tried to issue him a traffic citation. The GBI described the man as “non-compliant.”
Some sort of physical struggle ensued as the officer tried to take Hollman into custody, according to the state agency. The officer used a Taser on him, and a witness at the scene helped to put him in handcuffs. At that point, the officer noticed he was unresponsive, the GBI said following their initial investigation into the use of force.
Hollman’s daughter, Arnitra Fallins, told the AJC that she was on the phone with him during the police encounter. She recounted him saying at some point that he couldn’t breathe. “He was like, ‘I can’t breathe! I can’t breathe!’”
Fallins stayed on the line as she rushed to the scene to help her father, but by the time she arrived, he was already on the ground and surrounded by medical personnel.
“When I heard him that last time he called me, I knew my dad was in distress and I had to get to him. But to actually watch my dad die on the streets of Atlanta,” Fallins told a crowd of at least 50 people at the Tuesday vigil.
She said Hollman was visibly swollen and injured when she saw him at the hospital, but officials have not specified if he suffered any injuries during the police encounter. Davis said the family is hopeful body camera footage will help answer some of their questions, but as of Tuesday night they had not seen it.
Atlanta police declined to make the footage available publicly, citing the ongoing investigation. The officer has been placed on administrative leave, which is standard department policy.
“It’s just strange how everything happened — that he lost his life like that. So we still trying to find out the results of what really happened and bring peace to the family,” longtime friend Lester Dent said, joining others at the vigil still perplexed by how events escalated that night.
Dent said he met Hollman in the early 1980s when they were neighbors at Bankhead Courts, a former public housing complex, and recalled playing football and basketball together. Dent, like several others who gathered Tuesday, described his friend as a loving and hardworking family man.
As they shared their memories of Hollman, many vowed to continue fighting for justice and expressed an exhaustion in having to bury another member of their community.
“I’m going to keep fighting for justice — me and my siblings and my family — until we get justice,” Fallins told the crowd. “Because the way they did my daddy, that is not right and it’s unacceptable.”
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