Inmates Aid Stabbed Rikers Prisoner As Guards Not Present: Suit

NEW YORK CITY — Rikers Island inmates cared for a fellow detainee who’d been stabbed in the eye because there were no corrections officers around to help, a new lawsuit contends.

The suit filed Monday in Bronx Supreme Court demands urgent medical care for detainees on Rikers Island, where at least 12 people have died this year, court records show.

“New York City jails are in a full-blown humanitarian crisis,” said Veronica Vela, the Legal Aid Society attorney supervising the suit. “DOC can no longer deprive our clients of their right to medical care.”

Inmates Joseph Agnew, Anthony Gang, Tyrone Greene and Kamer Reid also petitioned the courts to release detainees with serious health issues should the department prove unable to provide immediate health services.

According to the suit, the absence of such services forced the inmates to find keys to the stabbed inmate’s cell and escort him to the clinic themselves.

Agnew, 23, who suffers from asthma, was once pepper sprayed five times in a single day but denied his inhaler or access to the Rikers’ clinic, attorneys said.

Reid, 33, did not receive post-surgical care after being stabbed on the island and is still waiting for a a hearing aid, the suit contends.

Greene, 47, suffered two heart attacks on Rikers and has gone days without medication because staff was not available to take him to the clinic, the suit contends.

The suit also details a litany of charges recently brought against Rikers that include three deaths in the past months and five deaths by suicide in the past year.

Detainees sleep on floors covered in excrement, receive food crawling with maggots and are confined indoors for months at a time, said Brooklyn Defender Services director Brooke Menschel

“Every minute, thousands of people are suffering,” Menschel said. “The list of horrors goes on and on.”

Rikers Island conditions have sparked contentious debate between Mayor Bill de Blasio and Department of Corrections leadership, both of whom blame the other for deteriorating conditions which DOC Commissioner Vincent Schiraldi last month called “Deeply, deeply troubling.”

The city filed suit last month against the Corrections Officers Benevolent Association, the union that represents Rikers workers, for an alleged campaign of absenteeism it blamed for the crisis.

The crisis has spurred hearings in City Council and the Queens Chamber of Commerce, as well as an executive order from Gov. Kathy Hochul to release 400 inmates and emergency action from the mayor.

De Blasio said in a press conference Tuesday that he was “really unhappy” about the allegations raised in the suit but argued conditions had likely improved as more corrections officers returned to work.

"We're seeing hundreds and hundreds of officers coming back," the mayor said. “Everything that happened months ago was in a very different environment.”

Matt Troutman contributed to this report.