Family of Indiana woman who died after Tim Hortons altercation to view full video of incident

(FORT WAYNE, Ind.) — The family of a 75-year-old woman who died following a physical altercation with an employee at a Tim Hortons in Indiana will be able to see the full, unredacted surveillance footage of the incident, officials confirmed on Friday.

The full video will not be released to the public at this time, the Fort Wayne Mayor’s Office told ABC News.

“The Grayson family will be able to see the entire video,” a spokesperson for the mayor’s office said in a statement. “There are no plans to show additional video to the public/media beyond what was shared earlier this week.”

The incident occurred on May 13 in Fort Wayne, police said. The customer, Anita Grayson, entered the Tim Hortons that morning to “address an issue” with a drive-thru order, at which point she got into a physical altercation with the store’s 20-year-old shift lead, according to the Fort Wayne Police Department.

Police said the shift lead intervened when Grayson “began berating a 17-year-old female employee” by stepping between the two and repeatedly telling Grayson to leave. When Grayson appeared to move toward the teen, the shift lead “placed her hands” on Grayson, who police said then “forcefully shoved the shift lead backward” and struck her in the nose. The two continued to struggle, with police saying Grayson scratched the shift lead’s face, knocked off her glasses and pulled her to the ground by the hair, pulling out a chunk.

An officer responding to the location found Grayson unresponsive, and paramedics arrived and attempted life-saving measures, police said. She was transported from the scene and later pronounced dead by medical personnel, police said.

Fort Wayne police released surveillance footage of the incident on Tuesday due to what it called “significant public concern and misinformation” in the wake of Grayson’s death, citing a “poor-quality video circulating publicly.” 

The three-minute video released by police showed the physical altercation and moments of Grayson then walking around and sitting, though not the entire aftermath or emergency response. The video has no sound.

Grayson’s family has called for the release of the full video.

“I need it to be released publicly because the world is waiting for what happened to her,” Grayson’s daughter, Tawnda Grayson, said during a press conference outside of the Tim Hortons location on Friday. 

Carlton Lynch, a pastor in Michigan and former community activist in Fort Wayne who spoke alongside Grayson’s family members at the press conference, said they had been informed Friday that the “mayor and the city police have agreed to allow the family to see the entire video.”

“We don’t know the extent of what took place in that restaurant,” he said.

The family continued to urge police to release the full video to the public. 

“I need it to be released publicly, because the world is waiting for what happened to her,” Tawnda Grayson said.

“My whole entire family loved our mom, that was the matriarch of our family,” she said. “So what’s been taken from us is irreplaceable.”

Tawnda Grayson told ABC Fort Wayne affiliate WPTA her mother had congestive heart failure and was wearing a heart monitor a week before the altercation.

The cause and manner of death remain pending, police said Tuesday.

The Allen County Prosecutor’s Office is reviewing the case.

“At this time, no decision regarding this matter will be made until the Prosecutor’s Office has received and reviewed all evidence related to the investigation, including the complete report from the Allen County Coroner’s Office,” the Allen County Prosecutor’s Office said in a statement on Wednesday. 

The coroner’s findings may not be available for another four to eight weeks, the office noted.

Tim Hortons offered its condolences to Grayson’s family.

“The health and safety of our guests and team members is our highest priority and the local franchisee has been cooperating fully with the police,” the company said in a statement.