Valerie Handy-Carey is no closer to finding her daughter Brittany’s killer today than she was when she got the call about her death over three years ago.
“My daughter is dead, and nobody has been held accountable,” Handy-Carey told Capital B Atlanta from her home in Columbus, Ohio.
A flight attendant for Spirit Airlines, 33-year-old Brittany Patriece Glover had recently been assigned to Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport and moved to Atlanta just two days before the fatal crash. Glover was killed crossing Donald Lee Hollowell Parkway on Sept. 19, 2022, by a driver who fled the scene.
Hollowell Parkway is one of the most dangerous streets in Atlanta for pedestrians. Wide roads, fast-moving traffic, and long stretches between crosswalks have contributed to 23 severe injuries and fatalities over a two-year period.
In 2021, Atlanta’s representative on the State Transportation Board Stacey Key proposed a plan to improve safety on Hollowell Parkway.
Since Glover’s death, the Georgia Department of Transportation has implemented a number of traffic-calming measures on Hollowell Parkway, such as converting the four-lane road into three lanes with a two-way left turn lane in the center and adding a median. For pedestrians, they’ve also added enhanced street lighting and crosswalks with light beacons.
“These improvements reflect Georgia DOT’s ongoing commitment to reducing crashes, supporting active transportation, and fostering a safer, more accessible street environment for all users of the Donald Lee Hollowell Parkway corridor,” a GDOT spokesperson said in an email to Capital B Atlanta.
While Handy-Carey understands the role that poor pedestrian infrastructure played in her daughter’s death, she wants the driver to be held accountable for their role in the crash.
In a statement to Capital B Atlanta, the Atlanta Police Department confirmed that the investigation into Glover’s death is ongoing. Crime Stoppers, a program run by the Atlanta Police Foundation, is offering a $5,000 reward for any tips resulting in the arrest and indictment of the suspect.
“As long as they are out on the street, you give them the opportunity to kill again if they haven’t already. People keep killing people with cars because there’s no accountability. I can run you over and [then] I can go home,” Handy-Carey said.
Black pedestrians at risk
According to a study done by Safe Streets Research and the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Black and Native American pedestrians are more likely to be killed across the United States, and Atlanta is no different.
Propel ATL, a nonprofit that studies traffic deaths and advocates for policy to improve safety for cyclists and pedestrians, found that Black neighborhoods in the metro area experience 61% of fatal crashes despite making up 43% of census tracts studied.
Jeremiah Jones, advocacy manager at Propel, told Capital B Atlanta he attributes the disproportionate impact of these fatal crashes on Black neighborhoods in the metro area to long-standing segregation, disinvestment, and political neglect.
“We are seeing less sidewalks, broken, cracked, missing sidewalks, which then force you to go into the road,” he said of Black communities in the metro area.
Jones also noted that Atlanta’s south and west sides have more state routes than other parts of the city.
“State routes tend to have higher speeds [and] are harder to get speed reductions on because the state tends to care about traffic flow and speed over pedestrian safety.”
For the second year in a row, Propel’s 2024 study of traffic fatalities across metro Atlanta’s five core counties (Fulton, DeKalb, Clayton, Cobb, and Gwinnett) revealed that traffic deaths outpaced homicides.
“[But] if you look at social media and the news coverage, you’ll tend to see more homicides being highlighted and not really traffic [deaths,” Jones said.
According to the Atlanta Regional Commission, roughly 3 out of every 4 commuters in metro Atlanta drive alone to work.
“We love cars in our society. The name of our report is ‘The Human Cost of Mobility’ and I would say that currently deaths are the human cost that we’ve deemed acceptable,” Jones said. “That’s why in most pedestrian fatalities if you ask the family whether there was ever justice they’ll say no.”
Two mothers join forces
A month after Glover was killed, 31-year-old Quanisha Ball was hit and killed by a driver while she was crossing Scott Boulevard in North Decatur. According to Courtney Thompkins, Ball’s mother, she was on her way to catch the Emory University shuttle to her job at the Winship Cancer Institute, where she worked as a receptionist.
“[Quanisha] walked and caught buses all her life here in Pittsburgh,” Thompkins told Capital B Atlanta. “So if she felt it was very dangerous, she would say ‘Mom, I have to get an Uber,’ and I would’ve paid that for her.”
The driver who hit Ball, LaToddric Jenkins, initially left the scene before returning to the site of the crash. He never called 911.
A spokesperson for the DeKalb County Police Department confirmed to Capital B Atlanta that Jenkins was never charged because the investigation determined that he was not at fault.
“You know what they said about my child while she was fighting for her damn life? They treated her like trash. They said she was going to die anyway.”
Courtney Thompkins, mother of Quanisha Ball
But Thompkins believes the police were always intending to protect the driver, based on the body camera footage her lawyer was able to obtain months after the incident.
“They treated this man with so much comfort. … They let him sit in a car because he said he was cold,” she said. “You know what they said about my child while she was fighting for her damn life? They treated her like trash. They said she was going to die anyway.”
The footage, reviewed by Capital B Atlanta, also shows the first responders asking one another why she has to be transported to Grady Memorial Hospital because they think she’s already deceased. One EMT described Ball as being split open like a potato.
“You know how you leave something in the microwave too long and it bursts? Yeah, that’s what she looks like,” he said.
A few months later, a grieving Thompkins saw Handy-Carey speaking about her own daughter during public comment at an Atlanta City Council meeting and noticed the similarities in their stories. She reached out to her on Facebook, and they have been working together and supporting each other’s fight for justice ever since.
The lack of accountability for both drivers in either crash have contributed to what Thompkins and Handy-Carey described as a loss of trust in the systems that’s supposed to protect their loved ones.
“Nobody wants to help us, they just want us to go away,” Handy-Carey said.
Both mothers were told they couldn’t go to the medical examiner’s office to identify their daughters’ bodies and felt that law enforcement officers treated the deaths as inconsequential.
“[About a year later] Courtney and I were canvassing, and I was passing out a flyer for Brittany, one Atlanta police officer looked at it and said, ‘Oh that’s old.’ I said, ‘It may be old to you, but it’s like yesterday to me because my daughter is dead,’” Handy-Carey said.
A spokesperson for the Atlanta Police Department confirmed that traffic fatalities are tracked separately from homicides, which Handy-Carey believes is part of the problem.
“They don’t even recognize that cars are a weapon. People being killed by cars do not get the same recognition as somebody shot by a gun. A homicide is a homicide is a homicide. Both of our daughters are dead, and somebody used a car to kill them.”
Jones said it’s fairly common for drivers to not face charges in fatal traffic crashes because the cases are considered hard to prosecute.
“There’s a lot of victim blaming that tends to take place. You’ll see reports and media coverage saying things like, ‘Well, they weren’t in a crosswalk.’ So are we greenlighting violence when people aren’t moving how we think they ought to move?”
Making streets safer for pedestrians
In order to make streets safer, Jones believes it’s necessary to reorient how society understands different modes of travel.
Experts already know how to slow down traffic to make roads safer for drivers, pedestrians, and cyclists, Jones said, but a lack of political will means these projects are often deprioritized or ignored.
“Traffic calming measures like speed bumps and lane narrowing are quick build fast solutions that can bring about loads of safety,” he said.
“[They] didn’t just take our child’s life, they took our lives as well.”
Courtney Thompkins, mother of Quanisha Ball
Protected bike and scooter lanes, pedestrian islands, and sidewalk improvements are other infrastructure projects that make the roads a more equitable space for people using all modes of transportation.
“Cars don’t necessarily own the road, it’s a shared entity. There’s multiple modes of transportation, and we need to be accepting of them all and treat everyone with the utmost respect,” Jones said.
Thompkins and Handy-Carey see improved pedestrian infrastructure as just part of the solution. The mothers firmly believe there will be more fatalities if drivers can continue to avoid accountability and consequences for pedestrian fatalities.
“[They] didn’t just take our child’s life, they took our lives as well,” Thompkins said.
The apathy both mothers said they have faced from elected officials and law enforcement in Fulton and DeKalb counties have not deterred them from their fight because they aren’t just fighting for their own children, but for everyone in Atlanta.
“When you get in that car and you turn that key, you’re making a choice,” Thompkins said. “When you get behind that wheel and you hit somebody and you leave the scene, you are a danger to society.”
