John Frank Brown

Less-than-lethal force

On Jan. 5 around midnight, 20-year-old John Franklin Brown was repeatedly hit in the head with a flashlight by Atlanta police officer J.K. Crenshaw. ... Brown was taken to Grady Hospital, where he died. A Fulton County medical examiner initially ruled the death an accident due to "extreme physical activity and cocaine intoxication." However, the case was reopened after the same medical examiner submitted an affidavit revising the COD: "It is my professional opinion to a reasonable degree of medical certainty that the combined presence of hyperactivity, blunt force trauma to the head and cocaine intoxication were the substantial factors that caused the death of John Frank Brown."