After five serious and life-altering incidents occurred on the infamous jail complex of Rikers Island in just the past two weeks, the federal monitor for Rikers Island raised serious concerns about the Department of Correction's capacity to manage the city's jails safely and effectively in perhaps his most strongly worded report to date.
The report, which was released late on Friday and comes just before a long weekend, contains the department's harshest condemnation since the Adams administration took office 17 months ago.
These incidents include Rubu Zhao's passing last week following a "self-harm incident" in which he leaped from the top floor of his housing unit to the lowest floor. 33 hours after the occurrence, the monitoring team was made aware of it through word of mouth in the media.
The report also recounts a detainee-correction staff conflict that resulted in the detainee being hospitalized and paralyzed due to the use of force. It alludes to another instance of a brutal inmate assault where the victim was abandoned in a pen for at least three hours while completely naked. Later, that detainee needed to be intubated due to internal bleeding and was hospitalized.
The Use of Force
It also mentions another incident involving the use of force in which an 80-year-old detainee who may have cognitive impairment and significant medical problems was restrained and kept alone in a pen for four hours. The patient was admitted to the hospital. This event was not reported to the monitor by the department, and the detainee was later released on humanitarian grounds.
The monitor claims that there was another instance in which a detainee was taken to the hospital and placed on life support without the monitor being informed of it. The detainee had a heart attack, the agency claims in the report, and it "does not suspect that any foul play occurred." Given the scant details of this episode, the monitor questioned that finding. The detainee is not expected to live, according to the article.
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