Deaths In NYPD Custody Nearly Doubled In Recent Years

By Yoav Gonen and Reuven Blau, The City

Sept. 17, 2025, 5:00 a.m.

Deaths in NYPD custody have surged to levels not seen in at least a decade, with 40 people dying in 2023 and 2024 combined — roughly double the toll of any two-year period since at least 2016, according to police data and officials.

At least nine people have died in NYPD custody so far this year, according to a police spokesperson, who noted it’s a 40% decrease from this time last year. Still, the tally includes three individuals who passed away in courthouse cells, which typically hold people arrested on low-level charges.

One of those deaths was 46-year-old Christopher Nieves, who collapsed repeatedly inside a Brooklyn courthouse holding cell last month after being arrested for allegedly shoplifting food.

His Legal Aid attorney frantically pleaded with police officers to take him to a hospital as his skin yellowed and his body gave out.

He collapsed and died a few hours later inside a holding cell at Kings County Criminal Court.

“The thought of Christopher suffering while waiting to receive medical treatment for hours in a jail cell, before he passed away, breaks my heart,” his sister Candice told THE CITY. “I wish I could have been there to wrap my arms around him during his last moments, so he could have felt he was loved and cared for. Instead, he died on the cold, hard jail cell floor alone.”

This year’s in-custody deaths also included two reported suicides that have raised questions and scrutiny from families and advocates: That of 18-year-old Saniyah Cheatham in July and of pedicab driver Musa Cetin, 29, in August.

On Monday, Legal Aid, the city’s largest public defender organization, urged the NYPD’s inspector general to launch an independent probe into every in-custody death, a request that was first reported by Gothamist.

The department’s IG has only issued one investigative report all year, a probe into how top brass misused social media.

NYPD data shows 22 deaths in custody in 2024 and 18 in 2023. Both counts are a considerable increase over the tally in each of the prior seven years, 2016 to 2022, when the annual totals ranged from six to 12. Data for prior years isn’t publicly available.

Police officials said they haven’t changed any policies in response to the recent increase.

The NYPD defines “in custody” broadly — from the moment officers determine there is probable cause for arrest, or when someone is restrained for safety purposes, until they’re transferred to another entity. Deaths in police custody could include fatalities at the scene of an incident, in hospitals, police facilities or courthouses, regardless of whether police action directly caused them.

For example, in 2023, the department counted the death of a 31-year-old man who was taken to a hospital after an arrest but who later succumbed to the stab wounds that sent him there. His death was one of 18 in police custody that year, the most recent year for which the NYPD released detailed summaries of such deaths. There were a handful of similar cases described that year.

The summaries identify seven detainees who died from injuries that didn’t involve police force, one death from an injury following an encounter with police, five medical episodes, three suicides and two apparent drug overdoses.

However, one of the cases where the police claimed no force was used was the arrest of 36-year-old Samuel Williams for allegedly riding his motorcycle recklessly in The Bronx and northern Manhattan.

“On May 28, 2023, officers attempted to stop a group of dirt bikes when the subject, operating one of the dirt bikes, struck a department vehicle,” the description says.

But it leaves out the fact that two officers in the NYPD’s Critical Response Team who were driving unmarked vehicles toward Williams on a two-way bridge suddenly veered into his lane as he approached — leading Williams’ bike to collide with one of the vehicles and go soaring through the air, according to body-worn camera footage released by the state Attorney General’s Office.

Williams died from those injuries the following day.

“For the police to say there was no police force used is outrageous,” Jaime Santana, an attorney for Williams’ family, told THE CITY. “We all know using a vehicle is clearly police force. You’re using it as a weapon ultimately.”

The attorney general’s criminal investigation of the officers in that case is still pending more than two years later.

Advocates also point to numerous cases where detainees with clear medical needs were left without proper care in NYPD custody.

Among them is the case of 43-year-old Soso Ramishvili, who in January died inside a Manhattan precinct holding cell after being arrested on misdemeanor shoplifting charges. According to public defender accounts, Ramishvili, who had recently emigrated from the country of Georgia, complained of chest pains and shortness of breath before collapsing in custody.

Witnesses told Legal Aid that Ramishvili repeatedly asked for medical help but was instead left unattended for hours. By the time officers entered the cell, he was unresponsive. Paramedics were unable to revive him.

Clear Violation of State Rules

The calls for reform come as state oversight officials released a blistering death review of 39-year-old Felipe Mendez, who died inside a Bronx precinct cell in 2023.

On the night of February 16, 2023, Mendez — who had diabetes, epilepsy and a leg amputation — was arrested in The Bronx on robbery charges after allegedly brandishing a knife at the robbery victim and a Taser. Officers transported him in a wheelchair to the 47th Precinct, where he was placed alone in a holding cell.

When he was first brought into the police precinct, Mendez told officers he had diabetes, anemia and post-traumatic stress disorder. He said he was cold and requested extra care. But after being searched, he was left in the cell with no wheelchair, where officers were supposed to make sure he was OK regularly.

Those checks never consistently happened.

According to the state’s Commission of Corrections’ Final Report of the death of Felipe Mendez, there were gaps of more than an hour where no officer entered the cell area — a clear violation of state rules requiring 30-minute direct checks. Even when officers claimed to log observations, investigators found they often did not properly confirm Mendez’s condition.

By the next morning, Mendez lay motionless on a bench. Officers later said they thought they heard him snoring. Just before noon on February 17, he was found unresponsive. Efforts to resuscitate him were brief and incomplete.

“The Medical Review Board questions why resuscitation measures including chest compressions were not continued by NYPD personnel while awaiting the arrival of EMS,” the Commission wrote.

The report ordered Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch to review whether officers violated department rules and to take disciplinary action if warranted. It also directed the department to explain its failed emergency response.

The Mendez case echoes the circumstances of recent deaths like that of Nieves, advocates argue. In both instances, detainees with visible health needs were left without adequate medical intervention until it was too late.

Additionally, Legal Aid officials note, the NYPD’s own data reveals troubling arrest patterns that the group says help fuel additional in-custody deaths.

In the first half of 2025 alone, officers arrested more than 66,000 people for low-level offenses, yet fewer than one-third were issued so-called desk appearance tickets where they could adjudicate the case by showing up to court as required by law. The others were taken into custody and arraigned, a process that can take up to 24 hours.

Arrests for fare evasion more than doubled compared to last year, while stark racial disparities persisted: Black New Yorkers were arrested for such offenses at four times the rate of white New Yorkers and were less likely to be released with an appearance ticket.

Advocates say that until NYPD custody practices are subject to the same independent oversight that exists for city jails, more deaths are likely to follow.

“This is not an aberration,” said Meghna Philip, director of Legal Aid’s Special Litigation Unit. “The NYPD’s so-called ‘quality of life’ policing is targeting vulnerable New Yorkers for petty offenses and literally costing lives. The lack of medical care and oversight is unconscionable.”

This press release was produced by The City. The views expressed here are the author’s own.