Mathew Ajibade died alone in an isolation cell, bound by the hands and feet, strapped into a restraint chair.
He had been brutally beaten, his body covered with bruises and abrasions. There were scrapes and bumps on his upper body and head, the result of being repeatedly punched and kicked by his jailers. Minutes later, secured and compliant in a special unit, a Taser was pressed directly into his genitals. Hit with 50,000 volts, the young man is heard on video screaming in pain.
And then, they left him there to die.
This was not a Guantanamo Bay or Abu Ghraib but South Georgia.
Ajibade was a 22-year-old “geeky” college student who had come to Savannah to study computer science. The county coroner ruled death a homicide, citing blunt force trauma. As Ajibade took his last breath, still strapped into a restraint chair, police allegedly falsified logbooks and failed to monitor him. The people who were duty bound to protect him, to ensure his safety, now stand accused of killing him.
It has been ten months since his death first captured national headlines, ten months since the lies began. For ten months, the Ajibade family has been fighting for the truth. They never believed the official story and, it appears, they were right.