Last Thursday, January 4, Chima Williams, 43, had been playing basketball for an hour inside the Rikers Island prison complex, when he suddenly collapsed in front of the eyes of other inmates assigned to the Eric M. Taylor Center, where they are housed. to those recently admitted.
Although Williams received immediate medical attention from jail staff, he was ultimately pronounced dead minutes later, according to a statement from Department of Corrections (DOC) spokesperson Annais Morales.
That death caused this Wednesday afternoon, activists from organizations such as Jails Action Coalition, #HALTsolitary Campaign, Visionary V, Freedom Agenda, to hold a demonstration in Foley Plaza in lower Manhattan where they denounced the various failures of local penitentiary operations, which began with arbitrary arrests and imprisonment in poor communities, and the little respect for human rights with which such processes are conducted.
The complaints were mainly directed at Mayor Eric Adams, Governor Kathy Hochul but also against judges, district attorneys and state legislators who were called to act now by releasing people who are without accusation but above all to stop send them to “deadly prisons.”
Marvin Wade, one of the promoters of the #HALTsolitary campaign, accuses that both the administration of Governor Kathy Hochul and that of Mayor Eric Adams, “are heartless, heartless and do not seem to care about poor human beings in black and white communities.” Latinas; It is unacceptable,” he remarks. This activist points out that he is not surprised that they are the same rulers “who have evicted migrants and the homeless from their shelters,” who also seem to ignore what is happening “in the depths of Rikers Island.”
He said that they as an organization will continue trying to “put the fire under the feet” of officials so that they do their jobs and also trying to give a voice to the victims with the intention of “saving lives.”
Activist Victoria A. Phillips known as Dr V, founder of the Jails Action Coalition, accused Rikers Island of being “a death sentence.” “We have lost another life, another heartbeat, in DOC custody,” she charged, noting that each death in prison means “a family more overwhelmed by the death of their loved one.”
The data that shows the crisis
Although nine people died in DOC custody last year, in 2022 that number rose to 19 inmates dead in the custody of that institution, the highest detainee mortality rate so far this century. Since 2021, the death toll has now reached 45.
That is why the banners during this Wednesday’s demonstration showed some of the names of those missing. Danny Hubiera, Manish Kunwar, Felix Taveras, Marvin Pïnes, Curtis Davis and Joshua Valles are just a few of them.
At the same rally, Congressman Harvey Epstein remembers that every time he is invited to discuss an issue related to Rikers Island it is because there is a serious problem. “It is heartbreaking,” Harvey admits, that while people are talking about the “mental crisis in New York City,” Rikers continues to be the place where not only people who have not been tried are kept (90% of inmates are in that condition). ) “but 53% of them have some kind of mental problem and 18% have a serious mental problem.”
Epstein says that what many of these patients need is medical attention and not to be locked up in prison. “We are surprised that people with severe mental problems commit suicide in prison,” he highlights and says that this very clear pattern “shows the failure of our government to protect the most vulnerable, those who suffer from addictions or struggle with mental problems.” .
He gave as an example places like Amsterdam in Europe, or Seattle in the United States, where “there is a better way to treat inmates with mental illnesses, initially treating them as human beings.” He insists that in New York we have “the opportunity to do things the right way,” and asks, “why aren’t we doing it now?”
For his part, attorney Conrad Blackburn, from the organization The Bronx Defenders, questions how it is possible that Chima Williams was allowed to faint and die at Rikers Island prison. And he ventures an answer “Because the DOC doesn’t care.”
For the same reason, Blackburn blames Mayor Eric Adams and the new DOC commissioner, Lynelle Maginley-Liddle, for that death just in the first days of 2024, long before the prison oversight body of the City of Corrections Board New York will hold its first meeting of the year.
These complaints were also directed towards them.
2024-01-11 00:52:00
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