Another incarcerated person dies on Rikers, 12th this year
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A person in custody on Rikers Island died on Wednesday, Sept. 22, 2021. AP file photo by Seth Wenig
By Jacob Kaye
For the third time in as many weeks, a person in custody on Rikers Island died Wednesday morning.
The incarcerated person, whose name is yet to be released, died around 10:50 a.m., after being found to be in medical distress and taken to Lincoln Hospital, according to the Department of Correction.
The cause of death is under investigation.
“I am devastated to see that we have yet another death in custody, and determined to stop this heartbreaking trend,” DOC Commissioner Vincent Schiraldi said in a statement. “We are doing all we can to remedy the unprecedented crisis we are experiencing in our jails. My thoughts and prayers are with the individual’s loved ones.”
The death is the 12th to occur within the troubled jail complex in the past year.
On Sunday, Isaabdul Karim died after being rushed to the North Infirmary Command earlier that day, the DOC said. Several weeks prior, 24-year-old Esias Johnson was found dead in his cell in the Anna M. Kross Center in what was a suspected suicide.
The crisis on Rikers has reached a breaking point, State Attorney General Letitia James said after visiting the complex on Tuesday.
Governor Kathy Hochul, Mayor Bill de Blasio and Schiraldi have taken actions this month to attempt to reduce the population of people in custody and to bring correctional officers, who have missed work in record numbers in the past year, back to work.
Criminal justice advocates say their actions don’t go far enough.
Queens Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Nydia Velazquez signed onto a letter sent to the governor and mayor earlier this week, urging them to shut down Rikers Island six years ahead of schedule and release its approximately 6,000 person population.
“We believe federal funds should be used to decarcerate and shut down the facility immediately, as well as provide social, economic, psychological and physical health support to all those that are released to ensure their safe reentry into our community,” the lawmakers wrote.
On Wednesday, de Blasio shot down the congress members’ suggestion.
“That's not going to happen,” he said. “Releasing everyone there is not the right way, obviously. Doesn't make sense.”
“In the end, the real thing we have to do as a city is close Rikers once and for all and this is something Eric Adams and I have talked about, we agree on,” de Blasio added. “The plan is in place. It will happen during his mayoralty. Rikers needs to close once and for all, but when we have new, modern redemption oriented community jails for inmates to go to, the answer is not to just open up the gates.”
This is a developing story.
