Man found dead nearly 6 hours after running from Fuquay-Varina police officer

FUQUAY-VARINA, N.C. (WTVD) -- Melvis Harris and her family are desperate for answers to her son's death. She doesn't understand how Bryan Harris, who she calls BJ, ended up dead.

"They wouldn't let us come in here and see my child. My baby boy," she said Thursday evening inside her Fuquay - Varina home

The 36-year-old father of three died six hours after an interaction with Fuquay-Varina Police. It all started shortly before midnight, on Wednesday. Officers said they attempted a traffic stop after Harris who was seen leaving a Citgo Gas Station pulled in front of a truck nearly causing an accident.

Police said Harris didn't stop for officers until he made it to his parent's home on Fayetteville Street, less than a mile away. His father Terry Harris said he was outside when Harris showed up. "He got out and he ran and police pulled up and run behind and he went and called for the canine," Harris recalled.

Police said Harris jumped from an embankment behind his parents' home. Officers called in Holly Springs K-9 to help search. The police chief, Brandon Medina said after an hour and a half they called off the search."BJ laid out there he told me that he laid out there in the woods all night long to five o'clock this morning," continued Terry Harris.

That's when his parents said their son showed up on their doorsteps. An hour later he wasn't breathing. "He just kept saying I'm hurting, I'm hurting. The time he took a sip of that cold water. He went out here, hit the floor and his eyes rolled back. And she started hollering and then crying. And she said Terry he ain't breathing."

The family said something happened to their son once he made it over the embankment and they believe officers were behind it. They walked us to the bottom of that embankment directly behind the house pointing out what they believe to be blood stains.

"It looked like they've been fighting and so my concern, my question would be did they beat my son and leave him for dead," asked Terry Harris.

But the Fuquay-Varina Police Chief Brandon Medina who watched the body camera video denies those allegations.

"We actually never made contact with him, I'll dispute those allegations that we never made contact with Bryan," said Medina. "We were not able to catch up with him because he had such a lead on running away and we didn't see him until we were called again to the scene six hours later," he continued.

The chief asked the family to be patient in this investigation. "We're going to have to rely on the autopsy to bring the details out as the cause of his death," said Medina.

Harris' cause of death remains unknown. An autopsy will be scheduled to help investigators determine what happened.

The grieving family said staying calm feels impossible. "Something is not right with this picture right here," said Melvis Harris.

"We send our sincere condolences to the family of Bryan Jamal Harris," Fuquay-Varina Police Department said in a statement.