(LEFT) Kiran Kimborough, (RIGHT) Johnny Hollman Photo Credit: TSR Investigates, Justin Carter, TSR Studios.
Johnny Hollman, 62, called the Atlanta Police Department for a minor car accident on August 10. Ultimately, Hollman didn’t make it home because he died while a young officer arrested him at the scene.
Hollman had contacted his daughter Arnitra while waiting for police after the accident and again while he was arrested. In an interview with journalist Justin Carter for TSR Investigates, Arnitra and her lawyer, Mawuli Davis, detail her father’s last phone calls before he passed away.
Johnny Hollman reportedly called Arnitra at about 10:23 p.m. local time to inform her police had arrived. By that point, Justin Carter reports that about an hour had passed from the initial 911 call. During that call, Hollman told dispatchers someone had run into his truck in what seemed to be a calm tone.
Officer Kiran Kimbrough, 23, was identified as the officer involved in the fatal incident. About an hour and a half after her father’s update, Arnitra says she received another call from an unknown number. The daughter says she could hear her father calling out “baby baby” but also heard the officer, who allegedly sounded “very irate.”
“[The officer] was hollering at [Johnny Hollman], talking to him crazy. You know, using profanity. Arnitra said. “And then I could hear my father start to say you doing an old man like me like this, I can’t breathe, my asthma acting up. And then he started to say help help.”
Arnitra reacted by rounding up some family members and heading to what turned out to be a chaotic scene with her father “distressed.”
“I see all these blue lights, red lights and sirens. Everything, everywhere, and I see them beating at my dad’s chest, you know, trying to perform CPR, you know trying to get his vitals. And I know that he’s gone because his body is lifeless.”
A statement from the Atlanta Police Department says the officer involved attempted to issue Johnny Hollman a ticket for the accident, but the 62-year-old refused.
“…the driver became agitated and uncooperative. The officer attempted to take the driver into custody but he resisted, and a struggle ensued,” Atlanta PD statement said.
The statement claims the officer deployed his taser and placed Hollman into handcuffs “with the help of a witness.” PD claims the officer didn’t realize Hollman was unresponsive until after the restraint was placed.
Though her father was transported to the hospital, he died, per Justin Carter.
The other driver in the accident also rang the Atlanta PD. His take was that Hollman was behaving in a manner opposite to calm.
“I just reported a accident, and I was just wondering how long it will take the police to get here, just cause, the person I got in an accident with, I mean this guy is acting a little belligerent. I just want to make sure that I’m able to report” the driver claimed.
However, Arnitra’s attorney says Hollman was not combative but had requested input from a sergeant in the privately-viewed bodycam footage. Davis says the officer demanded Hollman sign the traffic ticket while holding the 62-year-old on the ground.
The family is fighting for the bodycam footage to be publicly released while the incident remains under internal investigation.
“It was heartbreaking, I couldn’t believe what I was seeing,” Arnitra said.
TSR Investigates explores cold cases and special interest news stories underrepresented in mainstream media.
