Family of detainee who died on Rikers awarded $2 mil before filing lawsuit
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City Comptroller Brad Lander announced that his office reached a settlement with the family of Kevin Bryan, a 35-year-old man who died by suicide on Rikers Island in 2022, prior to them bringing a lawsuit. File photo by Jacob Kaye
By Jacob Kaye
The family of a 35-year-old man who died by suicide on Rikers Island last year will be awarded over $2 million from the city before they’ve even filed a lawsuit, the New York City comptroller’s office announced on Friday.
The family of Kevin Bryan, who, after a rash of alleged protocol violations from Department of Correction officers, was found dead inside a bathroom inside the city’s jail complex in 2022, will receive $2.25 million in a pre-litigation settlement. Comptroller Brad Lander’s office, which negotiated the settlement, found that reaching the settlement with Bryan’s family was in the best financial interest of the city, which saw 19 deaths in DOC custody last year, a 10-year high.
“While no amount of money can bring Kevin Bryan’s life back, we hope to achieve a small bit of justice by reaching this settlement swiftly,” Lander said.
“Following a judicious review of the facts and the law surrounding the family’s claim, my office reached a settlement with the Bryan family that is in the best financial interest of the City of New York,” he added.
The circumstances surrounding Bryan’s death were outlined in a Board of Correction report issued in April of this year. The report found that officers broke a number of rules and procedures that are designed to keep detainees safe in the lead up to Bryan’s death.
Bryan, who was sent to Rikers on a $5,003 bail six days before his death, was the 14th person in DOC custody to die last year.
According to the BOC report, he was one of several detainees left alone by officers despite signs that imminent harm was possible.
“The family of Kevin Bryan has suffered a tremendous loss that could and should have been avoided,” said Michael Aviles, the Bryan family’s attorney. “In bringing the civil action to a conclusion it is our deepest hope that this tragedy sheds light on the systemic problems at Rikers Island which have existed for many years.”
“Inmates at Rikers Island should not be facing a death penalty when incarcerated,” Aviles added.
Bryan was first sent to Rikers Island in early September 2022 on trespassing charges. Upon his admission to the jail complex, he tested positive for cocaine and told officials at Rikers that he had used heroin two days prior to his arrest. According to the BOC, he was beginning to show signs of heroin withdrawal.
However, Bryan told officials that he wasn’t experiencing mental health or emotional problems and was thus not seen to be at risk for suicide.
Bryan was then placed into general population housing, where detainees later told investigators he was bullied by other incarcerated people.
Several days into his detention, Bryan was transferred back to the intake unit for “being disruptive,” before eventually being sent back to the housing unit he was being held in. DOC staff did not refer him to Correctional Health Services following his disruptive behavior, the report said.
Without a “B” post officer, or an officer walking around the floor of the housing unit, in place, Bryan and several other detainees began smoking a substance inside the unit’s dayroom after it was supposed to have been closed at 9 p.m.
At around 3 a.m. on Sept. 14, a captain came into the housing unit but did not tour the dayroom, where Bryan was smoking under a blanket, according to the report. After falling asleep for several hours, Bryan woke up around 5:20 a.m. and spoke with the officer in the “A” post, or an officer inside a closed off section observing an area from afar. Bryan made his way back to the dayroom a few minutes later and was followed by another detainee who appeared to be yelling at him.
The detainee hit Bryan in the head and threw his mattress at him. Bryan then hit the “A” station window while another detainee helped him grab his belongings, according to the report.
Around 5:30 a.m., a correctional officer opened a gate and allowed Bryan to leave the dormitory and enter into a vestibule outside of the housing area, a violation of DOC protocol, the BOC said. Protocol was also violated when no correctional officer called a captain to the area, a requirement when a detainee was pushed out of a housing unit by another individual in custody.
Around half an hour later, Bryan, who was not being observed by staff, went into a staff bathroom and locked himself inside it.
The BOC said that an officer attempted to open the bathroom door around 6:36 a.m. but was unsuccessful. A captain and maintenance staff were called to the area and at 7:04, the door was kicked down.
Bryan was found with linen tied around his neck on one end and tied around a pipe on the other. Though staff cut him down and gave him chest compressions, Bryan was pronounced dead not long after being found.
At the time of Bryan’s death, Brooklyn Defender Services, the public defense group that represented him in his criminal case, called Bryan’s death 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.”
The family of Kevin Bryan, a 35-year-old man who died by suicide on Rikers Island in 2022, was awarded over $2 million in a pre-litigation settlement, the city’s comptroller announced on Friday. AP file photo by Julie Jacobson
“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.”
Five more people would go on to die in DOC custody in the months following Bryan’s death. Nine people have so far died while in DOC custody or just after having been released from it in 2023.
Lander has been a major critic of the DOC’s management of the jails and renewed his call for a third-party receiver to be put in charge of the jail in June after the comptroller toured Rikers alongside Public Advocate Jumaane Williams.
“Since well before Kevin Bryan’s death, I have been calling out the crisis at Rikers as being out of control, yet more and more people are being sent there, and too little is being done to address the crisis,” Lander said in a statement on Friday. “Pre-trial detention should not be a death sentence.”
Though the comptroller has the power to reach pre-litigation settlements, the action is rare.
Only one other family has received a pre-litigation settlement for the death of an incarcerated relative in the past decade, the Daily News reported.
The family of Jerome Murdaugh, who died in 2014 of heat exposure after being held in a cell that exceeded 100 degrees, was awarded $2.25 million by then-Comptroller Scott Stringer’s office.
