Audio file not found.
Ronda Hernandez stands for a portrait on Wednesday, June, 7, 2023 in Birmingham, Ala. She and her late partner, Carl Grant, used to sit outside their house in Georgia 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 says. “I could still tuck him into bed, give him a kiss, say ‘I love you.’ I can’t do that now.” (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)
This family photo shows Carl Grant, second right, with his family at his retirement ceremony from the U.S. Marine Corps in California in 1999. At center in white jacket is his partner, Ronda Hernandez; background left is his sister, Kathy Jenkins, and his brother, William Jenkins, right. Grant had been a proud Marine who enlisted at 18 in 1969, following the example of a favored uncle. (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)
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)
In this image from Birmingham Police Department body-camera video, Carl Grant sits on the porch of a stranger’s home in Birmingham, Ala., after police were called there on Feb. 2, 2020. Grant, a Vietnam War veteran with dementia, went out to shop for groceries near his suburban Atlanta home but became disoriented and ended up driving over two hours away. Police were called when he tried to get inside houses in Birmingham that he thought were his. (Birmingham Police Department 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 family photo shows Carl Grant in front of his truck after he started a trucking business in California in the mid 1990s. (Ronda Hernandez via AP)
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)
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)