Kofi Adu-Brempong is still recovering in the hospital, but he’s no longer under Alachua County Sheriff’s Office custody.
The UF graduate student’s sister-in-law, Cynthia Agyegmang, said the family posted his $10,000 bail through bondsman Rodney Long, an Alachua County commissioner, in order to prevent Adu-Brempong from being moved to jail.
Before the bail was posted, Agyegmang said she was not allowed to see or speak to her brother-in-law and said she had no idea his feet were shackled.
Adu-Brempong was shot by a University Police Department officer on March 2 after a standoff with police in his Corry Village apartment, according to police reports.
He was charged with aggravated assault and resisting arrest, according to reports.
The Alachua County Sheriff’s Office had been paying for treatment and for two ASO officers posted outside Adu-Brempong’s room since he was checked into the hospital under a pseudonym, said Alachua County Jail spokesman Eugene Morris.
The family didn’t post bail sooner because Adu-Brempong was in the hospital receiving treatment from wounds caused by the police, Agyegmang said. They paid it on Tuesday because they were worried Adu-Brempong would be transferred to the Alachua County Jail.
According to Keith Yearwood, the graduate student who took over Adu-Brempong’s geography class, Adu-Brempong’s tongue is stitched to the roof of his mouth and a bullet is lodged in the second vertebra in his neck.
Adu-Brempong is also being fed through a feeding tube attached through his neck, Yearwood said.
To prevent bed sores, attending nurses rotate him from side to side every two hours, he said.
Morris said Adu-Brempong would not have been transferred to the jail until his doctors permitted him to leave the hospital.
If Adu-Brempong had been transferred to the jail, they would have been able to take care of his medical needs at its infirmary, which is staffed with a doctor all day, Morris said.
Adu-Brempong was shot by Keith Smith, an officer on the UPD Critical Incident Response Team, after the police entered Adu-Brempong’s apartment and found him with a knife and a rod, according to police reports.
Police had been alerted that Adu-Brempong may have needed mental or emotional help.
But Agyegmang said she had no knowledge of her brother-in-law having mental or emotional problems.
“I’m not a doctor, but I don’t see any evidence of that,” Agyegmang said after seeing him.
Agyegmang said Adu-Brempong’s lawyer, Larry Turner, told the family this week it may be receiving good news, but she does not know if it is in relation to the current investigation of the shooting by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.
