FORT WAYNE, Ind. (WPTA) – When 21Investigates learned about Jonathan Ohlwine’s suicide, our team wanted to know more. We filed a public records request to see what landed him in jail in the first place. Our team obtained police body camera video and court documents which shined new light on the case.
Ohlwine was arrested on September 12 just after noon. Fort Wayne police say a detective spotted the 35-year-old walking in the middle of oncoming traffic. Police say he tried to get him out of harm’s way, but Ohlwine was aggressive, started swinging and had a “one thousand mile stare.” The detective says Ohlwine landed a punch.
The video obtained by 21Investigates shows a responding officer tasing Ohlwine. We showed the video, obtained by 21investigates, to Ohlwine’s ex-wife Trisha. She says he was diagnosed with schizophrenia. He wound up in prison after burning down the family’s home in 2019 and was released this past summer. Trisha says she has had to keep her distance to protect their two children.
“It took our home burning down in order for him to get help,” she says. She says Ohlwine also needed help the day he was arrested downtown. During the arrest you can hear Ohlwine tell officers about his mental state. “I’m a schizophrenic,” he said.
“They should have called the crisis team. They should have listened,” Trisha says.
But 21investigates has learned the Fort Wayne Police Department does not have a Crisis Intervention Team. Police tell us it was disbanded in 2018. Now, the FWPD says all officers are trained in crisis intervention. Department officials tell us officers receive three to five days of mental health training in the academy.
The National Alliance of Mental Illness has a Fort Wayne Chapter. Lisa Ganaway is one of the local organization’s board members. She doesn’t believe police are getting enough training when it comes to mental health. Her son was a schizophrenic and died from sepsis in a North Carolina jail.
21Investigates had Ganaway review the police body camera video. “What’s disturbing to me is that initially they’re just worried about what charges they’re going to charge him with. They aren’t worried about him at all,” she says. “I know he wasn’t acting rational, but right there tells you there’s an issue.” She believes not everybody is cut out to be a CIT officer. “In my opinion, the police need to use this as a training video of maybe how they could handle the situation better,” she says.
21investigates asked for a response from Fort Wayne’s Police Chief, but he denied our request for an on camera interview, citing the potential of litigation.
Both Ganaway and Ohlwine’s ex-wife believe someone dropped the ball when the decision was made to send him to the Allen County Jail instead of a behavioral health facility. “You can’t just throw somebody inside of the jail like that,” Trisha Ohlwine says. “What do you think is going to happen?”
Allen County Sheriff Troy Hershberger did agree to sit down with 21Investigtes reporter Julian Teekaram.
Teekaram asked if his department did everything in its power to prevent the Ohlwine’s suicide. “We follow our policies and to my understanding we have followed our policy in this matter,” he responded.
21Investigates also asked the sheriff if he believed Ohlwine should have been in the jail. “I can’t answer that,” he told us. “I don’t know specifically as to what his personal issues were. For him to be in jail there would have had to have been a criminal charge for him to be housed in the block that he was.”
Ohlwine was charged with battery of a law enforcement officer. Sheriff’s department officials tell us Ohlwine was put into general population. After just over four weeks, officials say he attempted suicide in the shower. He died two days later.
“We do not want to see any prisoner die in our facility,” Hershberger said. “Our goal is to ensure the safety and security of all inmates and prisoners that we house.”
21Investigates asked the sheriff if he believes the criminal justice system is failing people with mental health problems. “The criminal justice system isn’t set up to be in the mental health business, or at least the corrections county jail side of things,” Hershberger said. “We’re not a hospital. What we were originally designed for was a temporary holding facility for pre-trial detainees, as well as sentenced misdemeanors.”
Trisha Ohlwine says the system failed her ex-husband. “You can’t throw somebody in a cage, who is playing in the road and completely out of their mind. What is that going to do to him? It’s only going to further hurt him,” she says.
She hopes sharing her story will bring change to a criminal justice system that she says does not prioritize mental health. “Now my two children have to navigate through life without their father. None of this would have happened if he would have gotten the proper medical treatment,” she says.
Our investigation raised even more questions, including whether the outdated setup of the Allen County Jail contributed to Ohlwine’s death.
One county commissioner says, yes. We’ll explore that part of the story in our next 21investigates report.
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