NEW YORK (AP) — Inmates at New York Metropolis’s Rikers Island had been stored locked of their cells for practically half an hour whereas a fireplace unfold by means of one of many nation’s largest and most infamous jail complexes this previous April, injuring some 20 folks, in keeping with a report launched Friday by an unbiased oversight company.
The town Board of Correction additionally discovered that the water provide for the sprinkler system serving the affected jail unit had been shut off for a minimum of a yr and that jail employees had did not conduct the required weekly and month-to-month fireplace security audits for a minimum of as lengthy.
As well as, the correction officer assigned to the world, on the path of their supervisor, stopped conducting patrols some two hours earlier than the fireplace was ignited in a unit that homes folks with acute medical situations requiring infirmary care or Individuals with Disabilities Act-compliant housing, the board discovered.
Spokespersons for Mayor Eric Adams didn’t reply to an e-mail searching for remark Friday, however his administration’s Division of Correction, which operates metropolis jails, stated it can evaluate the report and its suggestions.
The Authorized Assist Society, an advocacy group that’s been important of operations at Rikers, stated the report highlighted “egregious mismanagement” and known as into query the correction division’s means to successfully run the jail advanced, which faces a doable federal takeover in addition to a long-gestating metropolis plan to shut the advanced outright.
“The Report describes layers upon layers of avoidable failures,” the group wrote in an emailed assertion. “It’s onerous to think about any establishment in our metropolis the place such compounding and colossal failures to stop and include a catastrophic fireplace wouldn’t end in instant accountability by management.”
The April 6 fireplace injured 15 jail staffers and 5 inmates and took about an hour to knock down on a day when native Democratic lawmakers had been additionally touring the ability.
The afternoon blaze was set by a 30-year-old inmate with a historical past for beginning jailhouse fires, in keeping with the board’s report. The person used batteries, headphone wires and a distant management to begin the conflagration in his cell, earlier than including tissues and clothes to gasoline the flames.
The board, in its Friday report, advisable corrections officers instantly open cell doorways and escort inmates to security in the event that they’re locked in a cell when a fireplace begins. It additionally advisable the division conduct common sprinkler system checks and cease the observe of shutting off a cell’s sprinkler water provide as a result of an inmate has flooded their cell.
Earlier this week, the New York Metropolis Council permitted laws meant to ban solitary confinement at Rikers and different metropolis jails, over the mayor’s objections.
