(Jan. 8, 2015) Family members are searching for answers after Matthew Ajibade, a 22-year-old artist and college student with bipolar disorder died in a restraining chair at the Chatham County jail last week (“Family wants answers after Savannah artist dies in jail,” SavannahNow, Jan. 6).
“We want to know why,” said his brother, Chris Oladapo. “Why is a young, creative soul leaving us so early?”
Ajibade was arrested after Savannah-Chatham police responded to a domestic incident with his girlfriend. According to a preliminary incident report on the arrest, Ajibade’s girlfriend called the police and told them to take him to the hospital. Ajibade resisted law enforcement “in a violent manner, and was taken to the ground so that he could be handcuffed,” according to the report.
When Ajibade arrived at the jail he was placed in an isolation cell after becoming combative with authorities. Staff later found him nonresponsive in his cell and rushed him to the hospital, but efforts to resuscitate him were unsuccessful.
Ajibade’s family wants to know why he was taken to jail instead of to a hospital in the first place.
Stories like these have become far too common. With too few beds, there are now 10 times as many people with severe mental illness in our jails and prisons than receiving treatment in a psychiatric hospital.
Tragedies like this will likely continue unless more is done to reform our broken mental health system and provide more comprehensive care for those suffering with serious mental illness.
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