2 days ago
Footage of Inmate Suicide Captures Dysfunction on Rikers Island
As calls mounted for a federal court takeover of the Rikers Island jail system in New York City, what happened to Michael Nieves stood out as a case study in that system's dysfunction.
Mr. Nieves, 40, was being held in the troubled jails on arson and other charges — his trial date repeatedly delayed by the pandemic and a series of mental health assessments — when he used a shaving razor to cut himself near the jugular vein and bled out on the floor as jail staff members waited for medical assistance.
The fatal episode was foreshadowed by other incidents in his recent past. While being held in the Bellevue Hospital Prison ward, Mr. Nieves, who had schizophrenia, had used another shaving razor to cut a gash in his neck — surviving only after emergency surgery. And he had been placed on suicide watch just months before he died, after he was heard saying he no longer wanted to live.
New York Times reporters filed a freedom of information request for video of Mr. Nieves's death and other cases of preventable harm in the jails, seeking to learn more about how jail staff members responded during the incidents. The Times then sued the city to force compliance with the state's open records law. The city provided the videos three years later, with the faces of detainees blurred and some information redacted.
Made public here for the first time, they offer a window into a jail system in the grips of crisis.
Mr. Nieves was one of 19 Rikers Island detainees who died by suicide, overdose or medical emergency in 2022, with most of the deaths deemed preventable by oversight officials.
A city medical examiner found that the officers' inaction contributed to Mr. Nieves's death, but that he could have died even if he had immediately received emergency aid. The State attorney general's office declined to charge the officers, noting in a report that the correction department's policy on tending to severely bleeding inmates was unclear. Three years later, the department is building out a new 'medical emergencies' curriculum, a spokesman said.
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