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"They Kept Him Off The Dark Side": Rikers Detainees Say De Blasio Intentionally Ignored Jail's Worst Sites
By
Jake Offenhartz
Published Sep 28, 2021
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By
Jake Offenhartz
Published Sep 28, 2021
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When Mayor Bill de Blasio emerged from his long-awaited tour of Rikers Island on Monday, he touted the city’s progress in restoring order to the jail. Among the clearest signs of improvement, he said, was the creation of a “better, healthier intake process.”
But those incarcerated at Rikers Island allege that de Blasio’s perception of the jail’s conditions — and the intake process specifically — was intentionally obscured. In phone calls with Gothamist/WNYC, three people currently detained at Rikers reported that the main intake area was cleared out and re-painted ahead of the mayor’s visit, with many of its inhabitants moved to a smaller secondary location, known as “segregated intake,” down the hall of the Otis Bantum Correctional Center.
While de Blasio visited the freshly painted area and another intake location in a different building, he didn’t step foot in the segregated intake facility — a place that building residents say remains dangerously crowded, infested with maggots and roaches, and lacking beds and working toilets.
Detainees who passed the segregated intake area on Monday said they were shocked to learn that new people had been moved into the decrepit block, which was previously used to house individuals who were confirmed as being dangerous or in danger of being targeted by gangs and others in the jail.
“There’s feces and urine everywhere,” said one incarcerated individual, whose name Gothamist/WNYC is withholding because he fears retribution for speaking out. “It’s packed. People were sweating. It’s just nasty.”
The intake process became a focal point in the cascading Rikers crisis earlier this month, following the death of Isa Abdul-Karim, who was confined to a wheelchair and spent 10 days in the main intake area without receiving regular meals or medical attention, according to his attorneys.
Conditions at the segregated intake unit, which previously housed some of Rikers most violent offenders, are said to be even worse. After state lawmakers and public defenders toured the facility earlier this month, Alice Fontier, managing director for Neighborhood Defender Services, told the Intercept that men were kept in narrow stalls and forced to defecate in plastic bags, describing the scene as “the most horrific thing I’ve seen in my life.”
As pressure mounted on the city to act, the Department of Correction began moving detainees from the main intake area to a separate space in the Eric M. Taylor Center on Rikers Island. The transfer reduced the average wait time to under 10 hours, according to the mayor.
But detainees and public defenders said that officials have turned a blind eye to depraved conditions that have persisted inside the segregated intake area.
“This is the dark side, and they kept him off the dark side,” said one detainee. “They’re hiding the people from the mayor.”
De Blasio acknowledged that he didn’t speak with any detainees or correction officers during the tour, a decision he defended on Tuesday by saying he already had a “pretty strong understanding of the extent of the problems.”
A spokesperson for the Mayor’s Office declined to comment on the record about why he didn’t visit an intake unit where people had been moved ahead of his visit.
In an emailed statement, Jason Kersten, the press secretary for the NYC Department of Correction, said no one was moved for the sake of the mayor’s visit.
“Conditions have improved dramatically since we switched our main intake to the Eric M. Taylor Center on September 21,” he wrote. “Intakes are less crowded, and we are able to safely house people much faster. We were also able to clean and paint the intake at the Otis Bantum Correction Center because everyone had been housed.”
Kersten declined to say how many people had been moved into the segregated intake area.
At one point during his tour on Monday, de Blasio apparently came within earshot of the mess hall, where detainees prepare food for those waiting on intake. According to multiple sources, the men began shouting at de Blasio, begging him to visit the segregated unit.
De Blasio did not acknowledge them, they said, and was quickly escorted out of the building by his handlers.
Additional reporting by Zoe Azulay
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Jake Offenhartz
Jake Offenhartz is a former Gothamist reporter.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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