come to a grinding/screeching halt

Stop suddenly. Referring to the noise made by gears or brakes during a sudden stop, these phrases date from the second half of the 1900s. The National Observer of December 4, 1976, had: “A lot of that stuff is going to come to a screeching halt quickly, and we’re not going to do the screeching.” It is also put as grind to a halt.