The family of Tyrah Adams hung a small wreath near where she was living when she was killed last week.(Roberto Roldan / LPM )The family of a woman who was killed by sanitation workers during an alley cleanup in west Louisville is demanding answers and accountability.According to city officials, 35- year-old Tyrah Adams was in an alleyway last week when dump trucks showed up to clear debris. Workers picked her up using a hydraulic claw mounted to a dump truck, along with some debris surrounding her. Adams later died from her injuries.Mayor Craig Greenberg called the incident “a tragic accident” during a press conference earlier this week, saying there was no evidence of wrongdoing.Sandra Acres, Adams’ sister, said she believes something clearly did go wrong.“Why did this happen?” Acres said. “If you are in operation of that truck, how did you not visualize that area? How did you not see if anybody was there?”Acres, who lives in Lexington, said her sister was unhoused and had been struggling with substance use disorder. The family had lost contact with Adams about three years ago, but their mother recently found her living in Louisville’s Russell neighborhood.Acres said Adams told her family last month that she’d consider going into a sober living program.“She was only 35,” she said. “This happening has taken that chance from her to be able to rebuild her life.”Acres spoke to LPM News Wednesday afternoon alongside Stephanie Rivas, an attorney representing Adams’ family and estate.Rivas said the family is struggling to piece together how something like this could happen.Filling in the detailsStatements from city officials about how Adams was killed have been vague, with one early statement from Louisville police saying she died after “coming into contact” with a garbage truck.Rivas’ law firm has hired their own investigators who are conducting a parallel investigation as Louisville Metro Police do theirs.The family believes that Adams was not actually dropped into the back of the dump truck, but transported in the claw mechanism to an area where they were collecting debris close by. Once she was released, the family believes she got up and walked to a nearby convenience store where someone inside called 911. A photo of Tyrah Adams(Courtesy of the family)Rivas said the family still has a lot of outstanding questions, namely how sanitation workers never saw or heard Adams after she was picked up and likely crushed by the hydraulic claw.One roadblock to the investigation, Rivas said, may be a camera located inside the dump truck's cabin. She said Louisville Metro officials allowed her investigators to inspect the truck and they found the camera had been covered up.“It was an inward-facing camera, so it would pick up the drivers and passengers in the truck, what they were doing while they were driving, working the equipment, but it had a glove over it,” Rivas said. “So, that’s obviously questionable.”Rivas said the truck did have an outward-facing camera and there were other surveillance cameras nearby, but the family has not seen the footage.She said she disagrees with the mayor’s assessment that this appears to be an accident. Rivas said she believes it was negligence on the part of city workers that led to Adams’ death.“They had to get out of the truck to operate that equipment, but had they done the extra step that they were required to do and inspected the area, they would have found Tyrah,” Rivas said. “This was completely preventable on their part.”LPM News contacted Mayor Greenberg’s office, but a spokesperson declined to comment citing the active investigation.A spokesperson for Louisville Metro Public Works did provide some additional details on Wednesday. In a statement, Communications Director Kristen Shanahan said the cleanup that occurred was routine and was not in response to complaints about a homeless encampment.“The alley is a known site for illegal dumping and was filled with trash concealing Ms. Adams,” Shanahan said.The Department declined to answer additional questions regarding the in-cabin camera and whether the workers involved called 911, also citing the active investigation.Family describes Adams as lively and protective of her siblingsAcres said she’s seen negative comments on social media about her sister following her death. She decided to speak to the media Wednesday in order to set the record straight.“It’s not like she didn’t have family that was trying, she didn’t have anybody around her that loved her, she did,” Acres said.For Acres, Adams was the cool sister, the fun sister, but also kind of like a mom, too.“She kept us away from things I’m grateful we didn’t see,” she said. “That was because of her.”They grew up in separate households in Ashland, Kentucky, but she said Adams always made sure they saw each other at least once a week. And despite a rough home environment growing up, she said Adams always tried to make sure her younger siblings had fun things to do.“She loved us littles, as she used to call us,” Acres said. “She always wanted to make sure we were at the park or eating ice cream or playing with water balloons during the summer. She took us to Kings Island every single year.” A photo of Tyrah Adams, right, and her mother.(Courtesy of the family)Acres described Adams as someone who was loud, who made herself known in a room. She said she was always singing or laughing. Adams was weird and a free spirit, and unapologetic about it.“She’d just be in her room blasting Slipknot or something like that, or Pink Floyd,” Acres said. “Her room was done up in all of that.”While the family had lost touch with Adams in recent years, Acres said she’d still text them from different numbers to tell them she loved them.Acres said it was one of Adams’ friends, someone who lived in the neighborhood, who reached out last week to her to tell her what happened.“You don’t want to believe it at first, your body is just taken by emotion,” Acres said. “My knees weakened. Your body just handles it the best way it can and, mentally, it just keeps you up at night.”With every day that passes, Acres said she sorts through the information officials give her and the questions that remain unanswered. She said she now wants justice for the sister she never lost hope for.“I definitely think there is wrong in what has happened, you know, wrong is wrong,” she said. “I want some answers and I want the city to be more aware of what they’re doing and who they’re around.”Acres said she also wants to see the city take responsibility for Adams’ death. ...read more read less