AG won’t bring charges against officer who didn’t call for help as detainee died
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The state attorney general’s office will not prosecute former Department of Correction’s officer Ezra Lewis, who was found to have violated a number of DOC rules and policies in the lead up to a detainee’s death in 2022 on Rikers Island. Screenshot via surveillance footage/AG’s office
By Jacob Kaye
The state attorney general’s office said last week that it would not bring charges against a former correctional officer on Rikers Island who failed to help a detainee while he died of a fentanyl overdose in 2022.
New York Attorney General Letitia James’ Office of Special Investigation said in a report last week that former DOC correctional officer Ezra Lewis would not face criminally negligent homicide charges in the death of 31-year-old Elijah Muhammad.
Though Lewis, who had been on the job for a little more than a month at the time of Muhammad’s death, was fired almost immediately following the incident, the AG’s office said that it would be unable to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Lewis directly caused Muhammad’s death. Lewis was still on a probationary period of employment on July 10, 2022 when Muhammad died.
The correctional officer began his first-ever tour of duty on June 7, 2022 inside the George R. Vierno Center on Rikers Island, three days before Muhammad arrived at the same facility after being arrested and charged with assault.
“Although CO Lewis failed to perform the duty imposed on him by law to obtain emergency medical aid for Mr. Muhammad when he saw him severely disoriented and about to lose consciousness…and although timely medical intervention might have saved Mr. Muhammad, OSI concludes that the evidence is not sufficient to prove beyond a reasonable doubt at trial that such intervention would have saved Mr. Muhammad,” the report read.
“Therefore, as the evidence is not sufficient to prove that CO Lewis committed, by omission, the crime of criminally negligent homicide, OSI will not seek charges against CO Lewis and closes the matter with the issuance of this report,” the report concluded.
Muhammad was the 10th person to die in DOC custody in 2022, a year in which 19 people died in total.
Muhammad was ordered to be held on Rikers Island as he awaited his trial around a month before he died. He entered the dangerous jail complex with a documented history of substance abuse disorder, and told healthcare staffers on Rikers that he previously had used heroin, cocaine, methamphetamines, amphetamine, cannabis and alcohol.
While Muhammad initially was prescribed methadone after showing symptoms of opioid withdrawal, he was not taken to a medical appointment to receive his medication three days before his death, according to the report.
On July 10, 2022 around 3 p.m., Muhammad was seen on video surveillance footage stumbling around a housing area. He eventually made his way toward the cell he was being held in and stopped in front of it, video shows. Appearing disoriented, Muhammad leaned against a wall as a fellow detainee attempted to direct him into his cell.
For several minutes, Muhammad stood against the wall with his eyes closed, swaying back and forth while appearing to repeatedly lose his balance. Several detainees made their way over to him as he stood there, pointing him toward the cell.
Eventually, Lewis walked over to the common area tables where a number of detainees were sitting and watching Muhammad. According to the report, Lewis spoke with the detainees, looked toward Muhammad and “seemed to be laughing.”
After a few minutes, Muhammad fell and sat slumped against a wall, the video shows. That’s when Lewis made his way over to the 31-year-old and employed a pair of detainees to lift Muhammad and move him into the cell.
The correctional officer did not alert any other officers or healthcare workers to Muhammad’s disoriented state.
From 3 p.m. until 4 p.m., Lewis looked into Muhammad’s cell eight times, according to the AG’s office.
Around 4:15 p.m., a fight broke out in the housing area. Lewis did not intervene but signaled for the detainees to stop, which they eventually did.
Around 4:50 p.m., Lewis opened Muhammad’s cell door while a couple of detainees walked inside, the report said. Lewis allegedly watched the detainees inside the cell for several minutes before they both walked out and he closed the door. A similar scene unfolded around 20 minutes later, around 5:10 p.m.
Lewis didn’t check on Muhammad for the next four hours.
Starting around 8 p.m., detainees in Muhammad’s housing unit – some of whom had been checking on him periodically – began to grow increasingly alarmed about his physical condition. Several times, detainees banged and kicked at the cell door presumably in an effort to wake Muhammad up.
At 9:43, a detainee grabbed Lewis, who had just returned to the housing area, and brought him toward Muhammad’s cell. Lewis unlocked the cell door and the detainee walked in, according to the report. Less than a minute later, the detainee walked out of the cell and Lewis walked away.
He returned a few minutes later with a second correctional officer and both walked into the cell.
There, Muhammad was found unconscious, cold, foaming at the nose and showing early signs of rigor mortis.
At 9:48 p.m., Lewis and the second officer carried Muhammad out of his cell and Lewis began to give him chest compressions. Eventually, the officers called for medical help.
Muhammad was pronounced dead in the housing unit at 10:30 p.m.
An autopsy later revealed that Muhammad died of a fentanyl overdose. It’s believed that after taking a dose of fentanyl earlier in the day, he took a second dose during the hours in which Lewis wasn’t checking in on him, according to the report.
Lewis appeared to have violated a number of DOC rules by not notifying others about Muhammad’s state when he first encountered the detainee around 3 p.m.
According to the DOC, officers are supposed to take detainees who show signs of disorientation immediately to a clinic for medical attention.
Additionally, “whenever an inmate complains or appears to be injured or sick, prompt action shall be taken to ensure that the inmate is examined by authorized medical personnel,” according to the DOC’s rules and regulations.
Regardless of the rules Lewis allegedly violated, the AG’s office said that it’s unclear if Muhammad wouldn’t have died had the officer instead followed the rules and guidelines.
The AG’s 25-page report cited video surveillance footage and interviews with several detainees who witnessed the moments leading up to Muhammad’s death.
The report does not include Lewis’ account of the events. When the AG’s office attempted to interview Lewis in 2022, his attorney said that the former officer “would not answer questions without full immunity.” The AG’s office declined to give Lewis immunity and “the interview concluded.”
