Not even the family of Manuel Luna, a 30-year-old Costa Ricanwho a week ago was found without vital signs in the George Vierno Center of the Rikers Island jail, knows the specific circumstances under which he lost his life.
“Nobody knows anything. The only thing we were informed was that she was waiting in an area for a bed. And there they found him unconscious in a cold cell. “They tried to revive him, but they couldn’t,” said Ashley Torres, the sister of the second Rikers inmate who loses his life so far in 2024.
Manuel was 15 years old in the country. After having been transferred to several prisons, He was held in that Queens prison for three months.
“We hoped that one day it would come out. But it was the corpse that came out. Nothing in the world is going to bring him back to our family. But it is fair that we know what caused his death.. “This is not only the case of my brother, but of all those who die there and no one knows in detail why,” Torres claimed, after joining a demonstration this Friday in front of the mayor’s office in Lower Manhattan, which called once again to the municipal authorities to close that prison once and for all and remove the veto to the law that prohibits solitary confinement in the Big Apple’s penal centers.
The defenders and elected leaders gathered this Friday with banners of the names of all those who died in recent months, to repudiate this new death and question to Mayor Eric Adams, because according to the activists’ criteria, is not acting quickly to close the prison complex.
Leaders in the defense of Human Rights will mobilize to demand a clear plan for the closure of Rikers Island.Credit: Fernando Martínez | Impremedia
The number 30
Nine people died in Department of Corrections (DOC) custody last year. Meanwhile, 19 people lost their lives in the department’s custody in 2022, the highest number of detainee deaths in a quarter of a century.
Luna’s death marks the 30th known death in DOC custody. since the Adams administration took office.
Earlier this month, the African American Chima Williams died on Rikers Island after collapsing while playing basketball.
“They are dragging their feet or at least not doing anything to address this human rights crisis. They are wrong if they think we are going to rest. We will continue to pressure this mayor to do the right thing, because right now he’s on the wrong side of history. We want social programs, investment, not criminalization,” said Darren Mack, co-director of the Freedom Foundation.
The activists’ claim intersects with the municipal president’s recent veto of the ‘How Many Stops’ Law that regulates how the New York City Police Department (NYPD) must process the statistics of searches and interrogations. Likewise, Adams blocked the city law that prohibits regulatory punishments such as solitary confinement, after arguing that in reality this procedure “does not exist” in the city’s prisons.
The Queens Councilwoman Tiffany Cabánjoined the protesters and shouted that the “mayor is lying” openly when he claims that punishments do not exist.
“We know of people who recently They have been locked in a shower for 23 or 24 hours. Solitary confinement continues. Like the racist stance of the mayor of block laws that benefit black and Latino minorities”asserted the legislator.
Cabán assures that in the coming weeks, the Municipal Council will resume actions to lift the veto of the two controversial police and prison control regulations.
For its part, Maginley-Liddie, Commissioner of the New York City Department of Corrections reported that they are investigating the tragic event: We express our deepest condolences to the loved ones of the deceased.
“There is no solitary confinement”
“We haven’t had solitary confinement in New York City since 2019, is a misnomer that was used to push a billbut that in reality does not respond to the call that many people are asking for,” Adams highlighted when referring this week to his decision to veto this legislation.
The municipal leader also defended the measure of handcuffing inmates when they are taken to court, as a measure to protect the safety of inmates and prison officers. Likewise, he invited the councilors to delve deeper into the penitentiary reality.
“We would never do this to a police officer. In my 22 years as a police officer, I would never allow a person accused of a crime to sit in the back of a vehicle, uncuffed, some of them They are masters at hiding knives and other weapons”, he concluded.
The data:
- 2 inmates have died in the Rikers Island jail in Queens so far this January.
2024-01-27 01:48:00
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