DOI to probe NYPD in-custody deaths
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Michael Gerber (right), the NYPD’s top attorney, said the Department of Investigation was probing the recent string of in-custody deaths that have occurred under the NYPD’s watch. Photo by John McCarten/NYC Council Media Unit
By Jacob Kaye
The city’s Department of Investigation is looking into the recent spate of deaths of New Yorkers while in the NYPD’s custody, police officials said during a City Council hearing on Monday.
The DOI and Office of the Inspector General for the NYPD have launched an investigation into the recent string of in-custody deaths, according to the NYPD’s top attorney, Michael Gerber.
News of the investigation comes as over 50 people have died while in NYPD custody since the start of 2023, including nine who have died this year. It also comes as legal advocates have called for the city to take a number of steps to address the deaths in NYPD custody.
The status of the investigation was unveiled during a City Council hearing focused, in part, on the recent rash of in-custody deaths.
During the hearing, a number of councilmembers grilled NYPD officials on the department’s reaction to the deaths, several of which occurred in city courthouses as New Yorkers awaited arraignment on low-level offenses.
Those cases include that of Christopher Nieves, who died in August in a Brooklyn courthouse awaiting arraignment despite asking police officers to go to a hospital to be treated for a visible illness, his attorneys with the Legal Aid Society said.
Nieves, who was arrested for stealing food from a grocery store in Williamsburg, appeared to be in medical distress when he was being interviewed by his attorney, the Legal Aid Society said. He had a bandaged foot, his skin appeared yellow and he was falling in and out of consciousness, the attorney said.
Nonetheless, he was never taken to a hospital. He died a few hours later in the holding cell.
“The tragic and preventable deaths of at least nine New Yorkers in NYPD custody this year…underscore the depth of this crisis and the urgent need for systemic change,” Meghna Philip, the director of the Special Litigation Unit at The Legal Aid Society, said in a statement.
The Legal Aid Society rallied at City Hall alongside other public defender groups including Brooklyn Defender Services, The Bronx Defenders, New York County Defender Services and the Neighborhood Defender Service of Harlem ahead of the Monday hearing to call on the city to implement their 10-point plan to address the in-custody deaths.
“There is a crisis of deaths in police custody in New York City. As public defenders, we cannot stand by as NYPD’s harmful policies, inaction, and callousness continue to claim the lives of New Yorkers,” Lisa Schreibersdorf, the executive director of Brooklyn Defenders, said. “We come together today to urge the New York Police Department, prosecutors, elected officials, and other stakeholders to take meaningful and immediate action on this ten-point plan so no more lives are lost.”
The plan calls on the NYPD to “end broken windows policing,” or the theory that arresting New Yorkers for lower-level crimes will result in a decrease of more serious offenses.
The public defenders said the NYPD should reexamine its expansion of its Q-Teams, which were recently placed in precincts throughout the city and are focused on addressing quality-of-life issues. The Q-Teams quietly replaced the NYPD’s Neighborhood Coordination Officer program, the Eagle exclusively reported earlier this month. The expansion of the Q-Teams comes as the NYPD has increased the number of low-level arrests it has made.
The public defenders said the increase in low-level arrests pushes “people with medical and mental health needs into jails unequipped to provide proper care.”
The 10-point plan also calls for medics to be placed in arraignment courtrooms with emergency responders also available for people being brought from Rikers.
The demand is somewhat aligned with a bill currently making its way through the Council that would require the city to build health clinics in all of its criminal courthouses.
The bill, backed by South Queens Councilmember Nantasha Williams, would order Correctional Health Services, the branch of the city’s Health + Hospitals system that provides health care in the city’s jails, and the Department of Correction to open seven clinics in courthouses throughout the city.
The legislation was crafted in response to the recent in-custody deaths in city courthouses.
Several months before Nieves’ death, 32-year-old Soso Ramishvili was found dead inside a holding cell in Brooklyn Criminal Court just an hour before he was set to appear before a judge. The New York Post reported at the time that an officer in the courthouse saw Ramishvili sitting on the floor, alive and alert, one minute, only to see him slumped over and laying on the ground the next. He was pronounced dead at the scene by EMS medics.
Ramishvili had been held for three days in the holding cell awaiting his first appearance before a judge.
As part of their 10-point plan, the public defender organizations called on councilmembers to utilize their oversight powers to inspect holding cells at NYPD central booking locations.
They also called for a serious inquiry into “the NYPD’s failure to implement measures to prevent suicides in its precincts.”
The plan also includes a call for prosecutors to “take immediate steps to address their role in the crisis of in-custody deaths.”
