Rikers detainee becomes 14th to die in DOC custody this year
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A 32-year-old man died after falling ill on Rikers Island over the weekend, the Department of Correction announced. AP file photo by Ted Shaffrey
By Jacob Kaye
A 32-year-old man died on Rikers Island on Sunday morning, becoming the 14th person to die in the Department of Correction’s custody this year.
An officer allegedly spotted Aramis Furse, who had open cases Queens, Manhattan and Brooklyn, appearing “unwell” inside the cell he was being held in at the Otis Bantum Correctional Center on Rikers Island around 2 a.m. on Sunday.
The officer alerted medical staff on the island and then called outside paramatics, who took Furse to Mount Sinai Queens Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 3:15 a.m., according to the DOC.
Furse is the second person to die on Rikers Island in the last three weeks, the 14th person to die in DOC custody this year and the 47th person to die while in the care of the city agency since Mayor Eric Adams first took office nearly four years ago.
The death toll in 2025, Adams’ last year in office, is the highest it has been in years. Furse’s death brings the 2025 death toll even with the deaths seen in 2023 and 2024 combined and brings it closer to the decade-high 19 deaths seen on the island in 2022, Adams’ first year in office.
“The Department is mourning the tragic death of an individual in our custody,” DOC Commissioner Lynelle Maginley-Liddie said in a statement over the weekend. “We extend our deepest condolences to his friends and family. The safety of everyone in our care is always our foremost concern, and we will fully investigate this tragedy.”
Furse was being held on Rikers Island on $20,000 cash bail.
He was facing charges of robbery, grand larceny, burglary and criminal mischief throughout several city courthouses.
Furse’s death comes less than a month after Edwin Ramos, a 38-year-old detainee, was allegedly found experiencing a medical emergency inside a bathroom in the Otis Bantam Correctional Center, the same facility where Furse died.
Like Furse, Ramos was taken to a clinic in the jail complex before being taken to a nearby hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
In the cases of both deaths, the DOC shared little about the circumstances that led up to emergencies.
The DOC said it reported Furse’s death to a number of agencies and watchdog groups for further investigation, including the Board of Correction, the state attorney general’s office, the city’s Department of Investigation, the State Commission of Correction, local district attorneys and the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner.
The agency also reported the death to Steve J. Martin, the longtime federal monitor tasked by United States District Court for the Southern District of New York Chief Judge to track conditions in the city’s notoriously dangerous jails.
Last November, Swain ruled that the city was in contempt of court, violating a number of stipulations of a settlement reached in the detainee civil rights case known as Nunez v. the City of New York. Ruling that the city had failed for a decade to meaningfully address the violent conditions raised in the Nunez case, Swain said that she was leaning toward appointing a “federal receiver” to take control of the day-to-day running of the city’s jail system.
Fourteen people have died while in the custody of the Department of Correction this year. AP file photo by Julia Nikhinson
Swain made her anticipated ruling in May, ordering the creation of a receiver, which she dubbed a “remedial manager.”
Applicants submitted resumes to the court over the summer and Swain has reportedly been reviewing them as she contemplates who will be appointed to the role and what the specifics of their job duties and powers will be.
It’s expected that Swain’s receiver will have sweeping powers over the management of Rikers Island.
They will likely be able to make changes to DOC policies, procedures, protocols and systems related to the Nunez court orders; review, investigate and discipline officers who violate use of force rules; hire, promote and deploy staff throughout the jails; renegotiate contracts the city has with the correctional officers’ union, which has long opposed receivership; and ask Swain to “waive any legal or contractual requirements that impede [the receiver] from carrying out their duties.”
The remedial manager, whose powers will remain until the judge finds the city is in compliance with the court orders, will also be allowed to direct the DOC commissioner and any other DOC executive in regards to the Nunez orders.
As the city awaits a determination from Swain about the receiver, the deaths on Rikers have continued to mount.
Advocates have pointed the finger at Adams, who has around three weeks left remaining of his mayoralty before Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani takes office.
“This is the outcome of an administration that has chosen incarceration as a solution to every social problem such as mental health, homelessness, and more, in our city,” Darren Mack, the co-director of Freedom Agenda, said in a statement following Furse’s death. “That is the legacy of Eric Adams."
