Why men keep dying at Rikers | The Fortune Society

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Why men keep dying at Rikers

The city Board of Correction’s thorough report on the deaths of three men who died this year while in the custody of the Department of Correction (DOC) makes it painfully clear that Tarz Youngblood, George Pagan and Herman Diaz died because of lack of appropriate intervention.

Their deaths are the direct result of managerial and systemic failure to ensure that posts on Rikers are staffed with uniformed officers willing to and capable of performing their duties. More than 1,000 correctional officers on payroll routinely do not show up for work, leading to uncovered posts and unacceptable double and triple shifts causing dangerous conditions for those at Rikers Island, whether incarcerated or working there.

There were no DOC uniformed staff on duty, at their assigned posts, in the housing units where Pagan and Diaz perished. When Youngblood and Diaz died, officers assigned to the security control rooms were on modified duty and thus restricted from actually interacting directly with people in custody. Beyond that, the officer on duty in Youngblood’s unit simply did not conduct the required rounds.

While individual officers may have neglected to perform their duties, this is a systemic failure, illustrating a broken system and an unmanageable physical setting. These stories exemplify a pervasive, deadly culture of dysfunction that simply would not be tolerated in any other city agency and certainly not in one charged with public safety.

The circumstances described in the report surrounding the deaths of these three men — followed by the death of 25-year-old Dashawn Carter days ago — further highlight why we must stop relying on pre-trial detention and incarceration as our default responses.

As Correctional Health Services noted in response to Board recommendations, “(A) large number of persons admitted to NYC jails have serious medical problems and not all those with chronic conditions can be housed in therapeutic settings with the current footprint.” At a bare minimum, under the current conditions, nobody with a serious medical problem should be detained at Rikers if their health and safety cannot be guaranteed. The concerning uptick in COVID cases across the city should provide further reason for pause.

Additionally, the detailed description of posts remaining unstaffed at the Eric M. Taylor Center (the intake center for all men coming to Rikers, where they must remain for at least 10 days for COVID quarantine) even after Pagan died in that facility shows that DOC simply cannot ensure the safety of anyone in custody, regardless of whether or not they are medically fragile.

Even after Pagan died on March 17, uniformed staff routinely were not at their posts on housing units in April. On one day, April 13, no officers were at their posts in all 21 open housing units. This dereliction of duty at all levels is breathtaking and has proven to be fatal.

It’s critical to note that in each of these terrible situations, it was people in DOC custody — not DOC staff — who attempted to secure and provide aid to these men in their last moments alive. Despite clear DOC directives, no DOC staff member checked on Youngblood’s cell for hours — even though the obstructed cell window should have provided a red flag that something may have been amiss.

Despite exhibiting tremendous physical distress and signs of life-threatening withdrawal, Pagan suffered in his cell for days without medical care because he was not housed in a medical facility, not transported to the clinic or given medication, lying in his own filth, and cared for only by men in custody. During the six days before his death, he missed nine medical appointments because of DOC’s failure to transport him.

Despite witnessing people in custody desperately trying to save Diaz — even performing the Heimlich maneuver as he choked on an orange — a DOC officer present in the control station in the unit did not come to his aid. The impulse to save a fellow being, to spring into action in the face of someone’s distress — that came from the very people we detain and incarcerate in the name of public safety.

Let us not forget their humanity, just as we must not forget the humanity of Tarz Youngblood, George Pagan, Herman Diaz and Dashawn Carter.

Page is the president and CEO of The Fortune Society.

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