Three indicted in black man's jail death in Georgia

A grand jury on Wednesday indicted two former employees and a health care worker at a Georgia jail in the January death of Matthew Ajibade, a Georgia college student who had been arrested on a domestic violence charge and was in restraints at the time of his death

The indictment comes amid a national outcry over police violence against minorities, sparked by several high-profile killings of unarmed black men over the past year and subsequent grand jury decisions in New York and Ferguson, Missouri, to not charge the officers involved.

Former jail workers Maxine Evans and Jason Kenny and contract health care worker Gregory Brown are charged with involuntary manslaughter. Kenny is also charged with aggravated assault and cruelty to an inmate. Evans and Brown are charged with public record fraud, and Brown faces an additional charge of making a false statement.

Ajibade, 21, was found dead on New Year's Day, strapped to a chair inside an isolation cell at the Chatham County Jail. The Savannah College of Art and Design student had been stunned with a Taser while he was restrained, was left unmonitored, and a log book had been falsified to say that checks were conducted on him that hadn't been, according to the grand jury bill.

The indictments came days after a leaked copy of Freddie Gray’s autopsy said that the black man who died while in custody of the Baltimore Police Department suffered a “high-energy injury” likely caused in the police van. Gray's death, which occurred in the midst of other nationwide protests against police killings of unarmed black men, sparked outrage and violent protests in Baltimore that drew national and international attention.

Ajibaded had been arrested after a fight with his girlfriend. The sheriff's office has said Ajibade injured three deputies during a fight.

Attorneys for Ajibade's family say he suffered from bipolar disorder and his girlfriend gave police a bottle of his prescription medication when they arrested him.

The Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) was called in to handle the case, and few details were released about what happened to Ajibade in the jail. Brown is accused of lying to a GBI agent about checking on Ajibade while he was in restraints.

On May 8, Sheriff Al St. Lawrence announced that nine deputies had been fired in connection with Ajibade's death. On June 4, attorneys for Ajibade's family released a copy of his death certificate, which showed the coroner had ruled his death a homicide caused by blunt-force trauma.

Dr. Bill Wessinger, the Chatham County coroner, said Ajibade suffered several blows to his head and upper body and some blood was found in his skull case.

Chatham County District Attorney Meg Heap announced weeks ago that she planned to ask a grand jury for indictments in Ajibade's death.

Ajibade's family in Hyattsville, Maryland, has hired attorneys including Florida defense lawyer Mark O'Mara, who defended former neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman in the shooting of Trayvon Martin. Those lawyers have asked a Savannah judge to disqualify Heap as top prosecutor on the case, arguing she has political reasons to ignore possible criminal charges against the sheriff. Heap dismissed the claims as baseless.

O'Mara has said he suspects Ajibade was having a manic episode at the jail when deputies “beat the (expletive) out of him to get control of him.”

He added, “It would be nice to say every one of them should have been charged with murder, but that might be unrealistic,” O'Mara said. “But here's my frustration: We have been kept so in the dark about the facts in the case that we really don't know.”

Heap said in a statement that state law prevents her from discussing specifics of the case.

Al Jazeera with The Associated Press