The Family Of Matthew Ajibade, A 22-Year-Old Savannah College Student, Wants To Know How He Died In A Georgia Jail Cell

Matthew Ajibade was a 22-year-old Nigerian-born artist and stu­dent at Savannah Technical College whose cre­ative flair led him to pur­suits such as fash­ion pho­tog­ra­phy and design­ing t‑shirts. He even had his own print design com­pa­ny called Afridale.

But Ajibade also had bipo­lar dis­or­der. And now Ajibade is dead.

He died in a Georgia jail cell under mys­te­ri­ous cir­cum­stances after police arrest­ed him for domes­tic bat­tery and resist­ing arrest. Police say when they came upon Ajibade and his girl­friend on New Year’s day on a Savannah street, her face was bruised and her nose was bleed­ing. Ajibade was appar­ent­ly in the midst of a bipo­lar episode. But instead of tak­ing him to the hos­pi­tal, police brought him to Chatham County jail, where they say he got into a scuf­fle with guards.

A day lat­er, his old­er broth­er Chris Oladapo got a phone call from some­one at the jail, telling him his lit­tle broth­er was dead.

“We want to know why,” Oladapo, 26, said Tuesday sur­round­ed by fam­i­ly and friends at Wright Square in Savannah. “Why is a young, cre­ative soul leav­ing us so early?”

To get answers, the fam­i­ly has hired Florida-based attor­ney Mark O’Mara, who became a house­hold name while suc­cess­ful­ly defend­ing George Zimmerman after he killed Trayvon Martin.

“There’s no blame yet,” O’Mara told savan​nah​now​.com. “There are just a lot of questions.”

His death is being probed by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, at the request of the coun­ty sheriff’s depart­ment. O’Mara said he wants it to be fair and transparent.

When a young Black man dies in police cus­tody in Savannah, many observers are going to cast a skep­ti­cal eye on law enforce­ment author­i­ties. This is the same city where a 29-year-old Black man, Charles Smith, was killed in September while in cus­tody in the back of a police car. His death led to out­raged protests after police claimed that the 6‑foot‑9 Smith some­how man­aged to move his cuffed hands to the front of his body and kick out the police car win­dow. And the offi­cers said they sud­den­ly noticed he had a gun, which they appar­ent­ly missed — so 10-year police depart­ment vet­er­an David Jannot shot and killed Smith.

There also have been many oth­er Black men with men­tal chal­lenges who died in police cus­tody instead of being giv­en access to men­tal health services.

In Ajibade’s case, his broth­er and O’Mara asked why the men­tal­ly dis­turbed young man was tak­en jail instead of a hos­pi­tal. O’Mara said the girl­friend, who the fam­i­ly said is the per­son who called police, told them he need­ed to go to the hos­pi­tal as she hand­ed them a bot­tle of his pre­scrip­tion med­ica­tion, Divalproex, which con­tained pills to treat bipo­lar disorder.

But in the police ver­sion of events, both Ajibade and his girl­friend refused treat­ment at the scene and there’s no men­tion made in the police report that she said any­thing about bring­ing him to the hospital.

This is how the ini­tial encounter is described in the police inci­dent report, accord­ing to savan​nah​now​.com:

Police say they were called to the inter­sec­tion of East Duffy and Abercorn streets about 6:15 p.m. Thursday to respond to a domes­tic inci­dent in which one per­son was chas­ing anoth­er. Officers saw Ajibade and a woman stand­ing togeth­er with a blan­ket over their heads. Ajibade was hold­ing the woman tight­ly, but she removed the blan­ket as police approached. An offi­cer saw the woman’s face was bruised and her nose was bleed­ing. Police told Ajibade to release the woman, but he refused even after sev­er­al com­mands were giv­en. When an offi­cer tried to pull them apart, Ajibade “start­ed to resist appre­hen­sion in a vio­lent man­ner, and was tak­en to the ground, so that he could be hand­cuffed,” accord­ing to the report.

Police say Ajibade con­tin­ued to resist arrest, even while on the ground of a park­ing lot at a con­ve­nience store in the 1500 block of Abercorn. Two sergeants came to the scene and medics were called, but police claim both the woman and Ajibade, who wasn’t injured, refused treat­ment. The woman told police Ajibade had been act­ing strange­ly all day, but she did not say why she thought she had been attacked. Police said Ajibade was the pri­ma­ry aggres­sor, and he was charged with bat­tery under the Domestic Violence Act and obstruc­tion by resist­ing arrest. The woman gave police a plas­tic pre­scrip­tion bot­tle, labeled as Divalproex, that con­tained pills. Police took Ajibade to jail.

Ajibade arrived at the jail at 6:40 p.m. and was placed in an iso­la­tion cell because he became com­bat­ive with deputies while being booked and his behav­ior was deemed dan­ger­ous, accord­ing to Wayne Wermuth, a spokesman for the sheriff’s office. A female sergeant suf­fered a con­cus­sion and a bro­ken nose and two male deputies suf­fered injuries con­sis­tent with a fight. While per­form­ing a sec­ond wel­fare check on Ajibade, jail staff found he appeared to be non­re­spon­sive. Medical staff start­ed CPR and admin­is­tered defib­ril­la­tion while prepar­ing to take Ajibade to Memorial University Medical Center, but efforts to resus­ci­tate him were not suc­cess­ful, Wermuth said.

Ajibade’s cause of death will not be released until an autop­sy, lab results and the GBI’s inves­ti­ga­tion are com­plet­ed, offi­cials said, though O’Mara said the autop­sy was com­plet­ed Tuesday.

The jail appar­ent­ly has a sur­veil­lance sys­tem, but it’s unclear whether it record­ed any of the pro­ceed­ings. Published reports quote the Chatham County District Attorney’s office as say­ing a crim­i­nal inves­ti­ga­tion is ongo­ing and the office will “han­dle the mat­ter fur­ther, should it become necessary.”