Again, man dies while under DOC watch on Rikers Island
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A 35-year-old man was found dead of suspected suicide on Rikers Island on Wedensday, Sept. 14. The man, Kevin Bryan, became the 14th person to die in DOC custody this year. Eagle file photo by Jacob Kaye
By Jacob Kaye
A detained man hanged himself inside a staff bathroom on Rikers Island on Wednesday morning, marking the 14th time this year an incarcerated person has died while under the watch of the officers and officials charged with running the city’s failing jail complex.
Kevin Bryan, 35, was pronounced dead inside the Eric M. Taylor Center on Rikers Island around 7:45 a.m., on Wednesday, Sept. 14. He had been in Department of Correction Custody for less than a week.
Bryan’s death is currently under investigation by the office of the Chief Medical Examiner, the State Attorney General’s Office and the New York City Department of Investigation.
Multiple outlets reported that Bryan, who was being held on second degree burglary charges, hanged himself after being beaten up by a number of other detainees. Running off during the attack, he allegedly made his way into a bathroom reserved for DOC staff and hanged himself.
The suicide comes a little more than two weeks after Michael Nieves, a 40-year-old man held in Rikers, slit his throat with a razor in front of two correction officers and a captain who did not intervene for at least 10 minutes. The officers were later suspended for not taking action.
With 14 deaths through the first eight and a half months of the year, the death toll on Rikers Island is on pace to surpass last year’s death toll, which reached an eight year high after 16 people perished on the island. By mid-September last year, 10 detainees had died.
“We are very distressed to hear about the death of Mr. Bryan,” said DOC Commissioner Louis Molina, who has led the jail complex since January. “Our deepest condolences go out to his loved ones. We will conduct a preliminary investigation into the circumstances surrounding this death for which we grieve.”
Brooklyn Defender Services, the public defense group that represented Bryan, called his death, as well as the deaths of the 14 other incarcerated people this year, an “utter outrage.”
“Mr. Bryan’s death is another horrifying result of NYC Department of Correction’s complete failure to protect the health and safety of people incarcerated in its jails,” the public defense group said. “This type of inhumane treatment has been tolerated by the DOC for years now, leading to the death of dozens of people like Mr. Bryan. Sixteen people died in NYC jails in 2021, and now 2022 is grimly outpacing last year’s total, with still three and a half months left in the year.”
“This should not and cannot be the norm,” they added. “We will not accept the death of yet another person in NYC jails. Every elected official, every judge, every prosecutor must do everything in their power to avoid incarcerating people on bail they cannot afford, leaving them to the mercy of a callous jail staff and a Department who fails to comply with the laws and rules designed to prevent the loss of human life that is now almost accepted as inevitable. It is not and it must stop now.”
Bryan’s death is the fifth suspected suicide to have taken place inside Rikers Island this year.
In August, the island saw two suspected suicides. In addition to Nieves, who was pronounced dead in a local hospital a week after attempting suicide, Ricardo Cruciani also allegedly made a successful suicide attempt last month.
Cruciani, a former doctor who was awaiting sentencing after being convicted of committing sex crimes against his former patients, was found unresponsive inside a shower area in a housing unit on the island on Aug. 15.
In June, Antonio Bradley, reportedly hung himself while being held in a cell inside Bronx Criminal Court. He was taken to a nearby hospital and granted compassionate release by the DOC. He died several days later and was not counted toward the department’s death toll as a result of his release.
In May, 25-year-old Dashawn Carter allegedly hung himself inside the cell where he was being detained. Carter had known mental health issues and had only days before his death been transferred to Rikers from a psychiatric hospital.
A majority of the other nine deaths have been the result of suspected overdoses.
Earlier this week, the Board of Correction, the body responsible for DOC oversight, issued a report on 10 of the 16 deaths to occur last year.
The report laid out a pattern of DOC staffing failures fueled by high rates of absenteeism among correctional officers and staff that often left incarcerated people, several with documented histories of mental health issues, unsupervised for hours.
The first death to occur on Rikers Island in 2021 came on Jan. 22. Wilson Diaz-Guzman hanged himself in the cell he was being held in. He had been in DOC custody for less than a week.
Upon entering Rikers Island, Diaz-Guzman was taken through an intake assessment, during which he reported feeling “hopeless or worthless and [had] thoughts of hurting or killing himself,” according to the BOC report. He was sent to take a mental health assessment. The assessment, which was conducted on Jan. 17, was not signed by a clinician or Correctional Health Services supervisor until Feb. 17, about a month after Diaz-Guzman had died.
According to the assessment, Diaz-Guzman denied having suicidal thoughts – as a result of the assessment, Diaz-Guzman was placed in general population.
Two days later, the incarcerated man reported that he had made scratches on his arms in an effort to get attention from staff. Though, at a follow up assessment of his mental health, officials reported that he came across as optimistic, the report said. Doctors who later reviewed his paperwork said Diaz-Guzman should have been placed under further observation and considered suicidal, according to the report.
On the day he died, Diaz-Guzman’s cell flooded – the report says the incarcerated man either triggered the sprinkler in the cell or flooded his toilet in an effort to get the attention of correction officers who had not given him his medication.
Officers responding to the flood asked Diaz-Guzman to leave the cell but he refused, the report said. He was then left alone for over 30 minutes. When officers returned, Diaz-Guzman was found hanging from a bedsheet he had tied around the sprinkler. It took two minutes after the initial discovery of Diaz-Guzman’s state for officers to enter the cell.
Several of the other suicides in 2021 on Rikers Island follow similar patterns of improper procedure, staffing failures and failures to recognize suicidal ideations.
In recent weeks, DOC officials and Mayor Eric Adams have held up what they say are improvements on Rikers Island, led by Molina and an “action plan” created earlier this year to stave off a federal takeover of the jail complex, which was approved by federal Judge Laura T. Swain.
While staffing numbers, use of force incidents and fights between incarcerated individuals have improved in recent months, many critical issues on the island continue to surge.
Slashings and stabbings have increased by 42 percent in 2022 when compared to the year prior and the jail’s population has ballooned to numbers not seen since January 2020.
A group of lawmakers that included Queens Assemblymember David Weprin and Queens City Councilmember Tiffany Cabán visited the jail unannounced on Monday and said that while some conditions appeared to be on the mend, serious troubles remain.
“Things have gotten a little better, but not really – not enough,” said Weprin, who chairs the legislative body’s Committee on Correction.
The lawmakers said that while incarcerated people in some housing units reported few issues, others said they had been left without services ranging from medical appointments to barbershop visits, and that they often went hours without seeing officers walking on the floors of the housing unit.
City officials will appear before Swain in October. The hearing, which stems from the case that resulted in the appointment of federal monitor Steve J. Martin in 2015, will center around the DOC’s action plan, which it created in conjunction with Martin.
Should the DOC be unable to prove that it has been able to implement the action plan and that the plan has led to improved conditions on Rikers Island, the city will likely again face the prospect of a federal receivership – a court order that could see a federal authority take control of the jail.
Adams has vehemently opposed the idea of a receivership, likening it to an indictment on his and his administration’s ability to run the city.
Campaign Zero Executive Director DeRay McKesson issued a statement on Wednesday, advocating for the city to be stripped of its responsibility of overseeing the jail.
“How many more bodies need to pile up before someone steps in?” McKesson said. “Yesterday, the Board of Correction showed New Yorkers just how far broken the Rikers has become. Today, the Department showed New Yorkers how incapable they are of fixing it.”
“It’s unacceptable to leave New Yorkers in DOC’s care any longer,” McKesson added. “Federal receivership is the only responsible path forward.”
