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Metro


NYC DOC SUDDENLY STOPS PUBLICLY ANNOUNCING DEATHS OF IN-CUSTODY INMATES

By Bernadette Hogan, Craig McCarthy and Steve Janoski

June 1, 2023 | 7:04pm

The city’s Department of Correction will no longer tell the public if someone
dies behind bars – a move critics charge is meant to cloak what happens inside
the Big Apple’s troubled jails.


MORE ON: DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS


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The abrupt policy shift was revealed just days after the DOC’s federal monitor
accused the jail system of failing to tell its oversight team about five
in-custody incidents — including deaths and injuries — as it is required to do
by a court order.

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Frank Dwyer, the DOC’s new chief spokesperson, framed the department’s decision
to stop informing the public as a simple change in routine.

“It was a practice for the last year or so,” Dwyer told The Post on Thursday.
“It is no longer a practice.”

Critics weren’t buying it.

“DOC leadership apparently doesn’t care about the humanity of the people in its
custody enough to even report honestly when they die,” NYC Comptroller Brad
Lander said in a statement Thursday that also called for a federal receiver to
take over Rikers Island.

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The city’s Department of Corrections has stopped telling the public when inmates
die in custody. Corbis via Getty Images The inmate deaths – which includes 19
last year and at least three this year – have led to calls to close the troubled
Rikers Island complex.Corbis via Getty Images

“The lives of people awaiting trial are not disposable and their deaths cannot
be swept under the rug,” Lander added.

The Legal Aid Society also skewered the decision, saying in a statement that it
was “another lowlight in the Department of Correction’s campaign to keep outside
eyes away from the catastrophe that is the City’s jail system and the harm it
inflicts daily on New Yorkers trapped inside its deadly walls.”

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“The city cannot be permitted to isolate the jails from outside oversight,
especially at a moment when so many of our incarcerated clients are vulnerable
to suffering severe harm or even death,” the statement said.

The DOC’s decision, first reported Wednesday night by The City, is a significant
departure from procedures the department established during the last two years.

Previously, the DOC issued press releases when inmates died that listed
information such as the deceased’s name, where they were held and when they
passed.

Last year, the DOC reported 19 in-custody deaths. This year, there have been at
least three.

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For the past two years, the DOC issued press releases when inmates died. Getty
Images

But the change led to at least two of the deaths initially going unreported:
Rubu Zhao, a 52-year-old accused murderer who allegedly leapt from the upper
tier of a mental health unit on May 14, and Joshua Valles, who died on May 27.

Both of the incidents, which took place at Rikers Island jails, were mentioned
in a scorching report issued last Friday by the federal monitor. The report
detailed five recent disturbing cases — including Zhao and Valles’ deaths — and
said the department didn’t notify his team promptly of the injuries and deaths
as it’s required to by a court order.

The monitor first learned of the incidents through outside parties, and – in at
least one case – from media reports.

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In the Valles case, the 31-year-old man with a history of drug addiction died
from a fractured skull, according to his autopsy. But DOC Commissioner Louis
Molina had written in a May 26 letter to the monitor that the inmate simply took
a “turn for the worse” after complaining to the medical staff about headaches.

Gina Pondexter, sister of Elmore Pondexter, who was the 16th person to die in
Rikers Island, speaks during an October 2022 rally at City Hall.Getty Images

The department’s general counsel first told the deputy monitor that Valles
“appeared to have a heart attack and no foul play is currently suspected,”
Molina wrote.

Molina went on to say there was “no departmental wrongdoing” in either the death
of Valles or Zhao’s.

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In a letter to Manhattan federal Judge Laura Taylor Swain, monitor Steve Martin
said an autopsy revealed that the skull fracture killed Valles — and the DOC is
“unsure how the individual obtained the fatal injury.”

Martin also said it’s not clear how Molina concluded that his department did
nothing wrong.

“This serious and disturbing update only reinforces the Monitoring Team’s
concerns about the management of this individual, any potential underlying
incident(s) he may have been involved in, and any potential reporting
irregularities or failures that may or may not have occurred,” Martin wrote.

On Wednesday, Swain ordered the DOC to provide to the monitoring team all
meaningful details – such as reports, records and other material — from the five
“disturbing incidents” by June 5.

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This will include information on both Zhao’s and Valles’ deaths.

The monitor has until June 8 to file a status report, the judge wrote. A
conference will follow five days later.

“These incidents have highlighted dangerous conditions and unsafe practices, as
well as grave concerns related to transparency and the reporting of information
to the Monitoring Team,” Swain wrote.

On Thursday, Mayor Eric Adams defended the embattled commissioner, who he said
has been “amazing.” And he implied that there is “something else going on with
this relationship” between Molina and the monitor.

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“[Molina] did not violate any of the rules on what he was supposed to report on
— not one item,” Adams said. “But if you would have read the report, you would
have thought just the opposite. So I think there’s something else going on with
this relationship that we’re having. And I have been extremely restrained, but
that level of patience is running out.”

Several people – including NYC’s comptroller – have called for a federal
receiver to take control of the infamous Rikers Island complex. LightRocket via
Getty Images
What do you think? Post a comment.

The monitor’s displeasure with the DOC was clear in the report it issued last
week. It lambasted Molina for trying to get Martin to stop the report’s release
because, he claimed, it would cause “great harm [to the department] at a time
when we are making great strides.”

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The monitor team declined to comment when reached by The Post on Thursday.

“I am not at liberty to make public statements, including statements to the
press, outside of our reports,” a spokesperson said.

The monitor was installed in 2015 as a way to help rectify claims that guards
regularly used unnecessary force against inmates.

The settlement — the culmination of a lawsuit brought by a dozen men who claimed
they were beaten by Rikers Island corrections officers — also instituted a
number of other reforms, such as strict rules against guards striking inmates on
the head, a body camera mandate and the installation of 8,000 security cameras
throughout the complex.


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