STONE MOUNTAIN, Ga. -- A 911 caller said George Mann was acting strangely inside of a garage on July 11. Gwinnett Police showed up and after some sort of altercation, 35-year-old Mann was dead.
The case is now under GBI investigation, but Mann's family is now speaking up because they're concerned they did not get the full story. Mann's family says they were initially told that Mann died of an overdose. But they claim police never told them a Taser was involved, and that they only found out when they saw the report on the news.
"To know him is to love him, definitely," Alicia Mann said about her brother.
Alicia Mann says her brother George had just moved to Georgia from Kentucky to help her care for their recently blind mother.
"No one's perfect," Mann said of her brother. "And he wasn't either."
On July 11, the family does not deny Mann was on drugs. They said he'd had a relapse. And they agree he was acting erratically. But the family says, that 911 call was made because Mann needed medical attention. But according to the GBI, Gwinnett police instead used a taser to subdue him.
"They were informed this person was having an episode, drug related," said attorney Scott Hoopes. "And at that point, there should have been medical professionals on site to ensure his safety."
They, the family says there is concern over what they were told. Saturday, Gwinnett Police released a statement saying "an altercation ensued" and the "suspect went unresponsive at the scene." The next day, an update from the GBI said Mann was "stunned with the taser" when he resisted officers.
The GBI report went on to say a gun and suspected methamphetamine was found in the garage where Mann was.
But Mann's family still has questions.
"They were led to believe this was a drug overdose, that he was unresponsive at the time they entered the garage," Hoopes said. "But you don't put a taser on an unresponsive person."
The autopsy report has not yet been released, so the cause of death is still unknown. Gwinnett Police will not comment on this case as it is under GBI investigation, but point out that it is standard procedure not to discuss preliminary investigation findings.
