Family of Black Woman Who Died After Brawl at Tim Hortons Breaks Silence
What began as a routine trip to a Fort Wayne, Indiana, Tim Hortons restaurant ended in a catastrophic loss that has left a family reeling. Now, authorities are actively fighting back against what they call a “dangerously false narrative” online, warning that viral rumors have fueled a massive wave of public misinformation surrounding the tragedy.
On the morning of May 13, Anita Grayson placed an order at the restaurant’s drive-thru. Unhappy with the items she received, Grayson went inside the Ice Way location to address the issue, according to the Fort Wayne Police Department.
Investigators state that Grayson “began berating a 17-year-old female employee,” prompting a 20-year-old shift leader to step between them and “repeatedly told Ms. Grayson to leave the business.”
Grayson, 75, refused to do so, shoving the employee backward and striking her in the face, FWPD said. The brawl continued, as police said Grayson scratched the employee’s face, knocked her glasses off and pulled out a chunk of her hair so hard she left “a raw area on the top of her head.” Grayson, according to authorities, also grabbed the shift lead by the hair, yanking her to the ground and rolling on top of her.
Two Tim Hortons workers were able to separate each side before Grayson sat down at a table and began speaking on her cellphone. At one point, police said Grayson picked up the shift lead’s hair from the floor and placed it into her bag.
About 10 minutes later, Grayson lay down on the floor. FWPD said the shift lead noticed and went to check on her, bringing her a cup of water. Officers responded to the scene around 8 a.m. following reports of a physical altercation, and upon their arrival, Grayson was unresponsive.
She was pronounced dead after medics transported her from the scene, 21 Alive News reported.
Despite the FWPD’s full death investigation, Grayson’s family members are calling foul.
“You should not enter a coffee shop for a coffee and a doughnut and come out unalived. That is diabolical,” her daughter, Tawnda Grayson, told 21 Alive News. “My mother was wronged in the worst way. I lost the matriarch of my family.”
Tawnda, who called her mother “a faithful Jehovah’s Witness” and “a God-fearing woman with a loving spirit” on GoFundMe, said she does not accept the police account and believes her mother should still be alive.
She also told the Daily Mail that she believes the police used artificial intelligence to edit the “full footage” in an elaborate ruse to “make it look like my mother hit first.”
Tawnda did not explain why she thinks the police would doctor the footage to purposefully incriminate her mother, whom she said had congestive heart failure and was wearing a heart monitor a week before the altercation, 21 News Alive reported.
“That’s the elderly lady,” she said. “That’s not how we treat our senior citizens. We be careful with them. We make sure that they’re alright. We don’t jump on them and attack them, and scare them to death.”
