ORLEANS — After four months of incarceration, primarily at the Bridgewater State Hospital psychiatric facility, Provincetown resident Jonathan Bridges has been released from pretrial detention.
Bridges was involved in an eight-hour deadlock with the Cape Cod SWAT team at his West End home on Feb. 28 and was arraigned and jailed the following day.
According to police reports and court testimony, Bridges was experiencing a severe mental health episode, possibly exacerbated by hallucinogenic narcotics, on the day of the incident.
On April 7, a judge accepted the Commonwealth’s 58(a) dangerousness motion, a determination of risk, which resulted in Bridges being detained without bail until June 26.
That day, Judge Robert A. Welsh III consented to joint conditions of release informed by clinical reports from Bridgewater and a social worker. According to the conditions, Bridges will be enrolled in a partial hospitalization program at Cape Cod Hospital. He must also continue his prescribed medications, receive treatment from an “individualized therapist,” and adhere to a 9 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew. Judge Welsh ordered GPS monitoring of Bridges’s compliance with the curfew.
“The hope is this will provide some structure,” defense counsel Matthew Kelly told the court.
Cape Cod Hospital’s partial hospitalization program (PHP) for adults lasts 7 to 10 days and is for “individuals with acute psychiatric conditions that require more support and structure than outpatient treatment alone can provide,” according to the hospital website.
Bridges is facing two counts of kidnapping, one count of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, and one count of firearm possession. These charges have not been amended, Second Assistant District Attorney Russ Eonas confirmed.
Bridges will next appear in court on Aug. 25 for a probable cause hearing, now thrice postponed, on the firearms charge, which is outside the district court’s final jurisdiction. According to police reports, the weapon identified as a firearm in Bridges’s possession was actually a BB gun.
