2 incarcerated at Sing Sing found dead in cells as strike continues, NY officials confirm

Yahoo

27-02-2025

OSSINING - Two men incarcerated at Sing Sing have died in the last week of February, New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision officials confirmed. The deaths come amid a wildcat strike at 38 of New York's 42 state prisons, including Sing Sing Correctional Facility, according to DOCCS.
The two men had been found unresponsive in their cells in separate incidents.
While DOCCS confirmed the Sing Sing deaths, probes into the circumstances are ongoing.
Advocates for prison reform have drawn a link to the deaths and the ongoing labor actions across the system.
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Jerome Wright, co-director of the #HALTsolitary Campaign, said lockdowns amid the shortage corrections officers were "life-threatening" and an illegal abdication of officer's basic responsibilities to provide people care.
"The officers claim to be complaining about safety," said Wright, who was formerly incarcerated and has been an advocate for criminal justice reform. "They are not dying. We are."
Several factors sparked the strikes, including correction officers' anger over state laws like the HALT Act, which restricted solitary confinement rules, and long hours worked under difficult conditions. The strike also comes after firings of corrections officers — and later murder charges — in connection with the beating death of Robert Brooks, who was incarcerated at Marcy Correctional Facility near Utica.
The job actions started in mid-February.
Both deaths, according to DOCCS, occurred on Feb. 26.
Anthony Douglas, 67, was found unresponsive in his cell. According to DOCCS, CPR and other measures were taken by staff; local EMTs arrived and took over treatment. Douglas was pronounced dead at 4:25 p.m. by a doctor from a local hospital. He had been incarcerated in 1985, serving a 122-year-to-life sentence after he was convicted of 21 charges in Brooklyn, including first-degree rape, second-degree murder and burglary.
Franklyn Dominguez, 35, was found unresponsive in his cell. Staff performed CPR and other measures, according to DOCCS; EMTs arrived and took over care. He was pronounced dead at Sing Sing at 8:48 p.m. by a doctor from a local hospital. Dominguez has been in DOCCS custody since 2022 and was serving a 0-to-six-year sentence after he was convicted in New York City of three counts of first-degree assault.
Official cause of death for the men would be determined by the Westchester County Medical Examiner's Office. All deaths in DOCCS' facilities are also reviewed by the State Commission of Correction.
While DOCCS did not report the men were in solitary conditions, activists have said they believe the men had been locked in their cells.
'While these rouge officers engage in an illegal wildcat strike, people in New York's prisons are dying while locked down in solitary confinement," Wright said.
During the walkout, Gov. Kathy Hochul suspended part of the HALT Act, which restricts the use of solitary confinement. Corrections officers have railed against HALT, saying it limits their ability to separate people who are violent, takes away a deterrent and creates unsafe situations.
Supports of HALT say the law keeps people safe, focuses on rehabilitation and curbs abuses of solitary confinement. HALT, among other things, restricts the use of solitary confinement for older and younger people, or for those living with disabilities.
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Hochul has also enlisted the National Guard during the walkout.
Wright of the #HALTsolitary Campaign demanded the HALT Solitary Confinement Law be fully reinstated "in order to stop torture, improve safety, and save lives." He also called on Hochul to use executive clemency to release elderly and vulnerable people now incarcerated.
Her office did not immediately return a request for comment.
Jose Saldana, director of the Release Aging People in Prison Campaign, said the guards' decision to walk off the job had endangered lives.
"The conditions inside New York prisons were bad enough before the work stoppage," said Saldana, who was formerly incarcerated for 38 years.
Invoking the specter of the 1971 Attica uprising over abysmal conditions, Saldana added, "now the situation has only gotten more dire."
Although the New York State Correctional Officers & Police Benevolent Association did not authorize the strike, the union has been in mediation talks with the state.
A union spokesperson said he expected a formal offer from the state Thursday addressing the demands of those who have refused to work during the labor dispute. He did not provide details of that offer, but said if it occurred Thursday, it would be presented to union members still refusing to work.
This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: Sing Sing deaths reported amid NY prison strikes. What we know now