City officials said Sunday a 31-year-old man died in a Rikers Island jail, leading to the immediate firing of a correctional officer involved in the incident, officials said. city said Monday.
The man, Elijah Muhammad, has been detained at the complex since June on assault charges, records show. Details of what led to his death – he is the 10th person to die this year after being held at the city prison – were not immediately released.
But in a statement, the Department of Corrections commissioner, Louis A. Molina, said the initial review of the case indicated the need for “immediate action against the employees involved, including the officer involved. officer was fired.
“We take every death very seriously and understand that it is our duty to keep everyone in our care safe,” said Molina, adding that The agency referred the case to the city’s Bureau of Investigation for a possible crime review. review.
Molina did not elaborate on the reasons for firing the corrections officer, but a person familiar with the matter said the officer did not do his job properly, adding that the department was looking into whether the officer could no intervention when Mr. Muhammad. is under suspicion of drug overdose, among other things.
Rarely does the agency fire a corrections officer immediately after a detainee dies; Deadly incidents have become routine over the past two years in a prison complex engulfed in chaos and disorder. But the person familiar with the termination said that the fired employee was still on probationary period after being newly hired and had not yet enjoyed the same protections as tenured members of the company. the civil servants’ union regulates the city. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the case.
The death, and the quick disciplinary action that ensued from it, came as city officials resisted a call by a federal court to take over the Rikers Island complex, which is incapable of administering prisons. During the coronavirus pandemic, gang members took control of some housing estates and forced some incarcerated people without food or basic health care.
The specter of a federal takeover has pervaded Rikers Island since April, when the U.S. attorney in Manhattan raised the prospect of appointing an independent warden to some or all of the city’s prison system. city. At a hearing shortly after, a federal judge reviewed a plan prepared by the Department of Corrections to reduce violence at the complex and ordered the department to amend it.
Molina, appointed in January by Mayor Eric Adams, raised concerns among prisoners’ rights advocates earlier this year when he fired the Bureau of Corrections’ top internal investigator after he requested that she quickly resolve the backlog of disciplinary cases against correctional officers.
A series of rules often make it difficult for officers to correct firings.
Disciplinary officers have the right to have their case heard before an administrative judge, and the officer may appeal the decision after their case is decided.
Usually it It can take years for the department to deal with even the most severe cases about officer misconduct and negligence, and resolution does not always end with the dismissal of an officer. In 2019, as officers watched as a young man tried to hang himself in his cell for seven minutes, the worst punishment any of them faced was suspension.
Muhammad’s death is just the latest to occur in what is shaping up to be another deadly year in New York City’s prison system.
Last month, a week after a federal judge barred the federal takeover of Rikers, three people were caught dead in three days.
Antonio Bradley, 28, died on June 18, three days after he was granted a philanthropic license to Lincoln Hospital in the Bronx, Department of Corrections officials said. Mr. Bradley, who was incarcerated in a psychiatric observation unit in Rikers, used his sweater to hang himself in his courtroom after a hearing in Bronx criminal court. A person familiar with his death said he was hanged minutes before prison officials recognized him and after that, he was brain dead.
Two days later, Anibal Carrasquillo, 39, died at the George R. Vierno Center, officials said. People with knowledge of the matter said the cause could have been an overdose of drugs at the time. Hours before his death, Mr. Carrasquillo complained of chest pain, but officers ignored him, detainees told staff at the Board of Correction, a board that oversees prisons. Staff members performed chest compressions and medical technicians performed CPR and Narcan, according to the board’s preliminary death report, could not be saved.
The next day, Albert Drye, 52, died at Bellevue Prison Hospital, according to the Legal Aid Association, which represents him. The cause of his death is still unknown. He was taken to hospital just six days after entering prison, where his condition worsened daily, according to the Corrections Council death report.
Despite this, management reports, no prison staff member noted that he was seriously ill.
