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Man killed while helping CMPD officers was a truck driver, devoted father

CHARLOTTE — A mother is sharing memories of her son weeks after a crash killed him and nearly took the lives of two police officers.

Twenty-nine-year-old Brian Battle was hit by an RV along an interstate ramp. He was on the job hauling cars when he noticed that something wasn’t right.

Police were called on Aug. 22 to Interstate 485 and Mount Holly Road to investigate a stolen vehicle. Battle was the one who reported the vehicle.

“If you saw Brian, it made you want to be a better person,” Chiqueta Battle-Grant, Battle’s mom, told Channel 9′s Glenn Counts.

That act of good citizenship cost Battle his life. Counts caught up with his mother by phone on Wednesday from Nash County.

“The way it happened is devastating to me,” she said. “He was just communicating with police and out of nowhere comes an RV. It’s the way that he died that hurt.”

Police said Battle was hit and killed by the driver of that RV as he was standing outside talking to officers. The RV also hit a police cruiser, injuring two officers.

The officers have since been released from the hospital. Battle’s mom is thankful they are OK.

“That was definitely Brian,” she said. “He loved hard, he loved deeply, and he just tried to live his life with a purpose.”

Battle-Grant said her son was honest to a fault, was deeply religious, and was a devoted father to his 3-year-old son.

“He loved reading the Koran. He studied it,” she said. “His devotion to prayer, fasting, eating right, giving back to the community.”

Battle was a truck driver and he would haul cars all over the country. He developed a love for the road when he was very young.

“My dad owned a truck, another uncle owned a truck. So Brian had two uncles at the age of 5,” Battle-Grant said. “He would drive and ride with them across the United States at a young age. He loved the big rigs.”

Police are continuing to investigate the case. The driver of the RV has not been charged.

“I don’t know the law well enough, but I don’t understand because, to me, I just don’t understand that part,” Battle-Grant said.

There’s no word on how much longer the investigation is likely to take. Channel 9 looked into the background of the driver and he has a clean record.

(WATCH BELOW: Stolen truck investigation ends in deadly crash with 2 officers hurt, CMPD says)

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