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Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand will join us later this hour, with her take on the historic debt ceiling bill. For one thing, we'll ask if she will vote yes or no, obviously, as some of the most progressive Democrats and some of the most conservative Republicans are criticizing the deal, and in the Senate, where Gillibrand serves, they need 60, yes, votes, because of the filibuster.

Every vote matters, and we'll ask if she thinks the deal is good for New York, which the Senator, of course, represents. Gillibrand is up for reelection next year, she's declared, and there's been speculation that she may get primaried from the left, maybe by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez or someone else. I don't think AOC has ruled it out. It'll be interesting to talk to Senator Gillibrand in about a half hour, in our monthly Call Your Senator segment, and as part of that, she will take your questions, as well as mine.

I'll bet many of you would rather hear about the substance and politics of the debt ceiling right away than what we're going to talk about first. What government services got into the deal? You want to know about that. What got cut out? What are the implications for the economy as a whole? Who's in and who's out? Including Gillibrand. It's consequential, and it's interesting politics, too. You might think we could jump right into debt ceiling talk, while other basic things maybe take care of themselves. Like jail, for example.

You might think that that's pretty straightforward, that people who are locked up while they await trial can be protected from each other and from the officers who guard them, and they would be responsible agents of our elected government, but we are learning, once again, how far we are from that straightforward condition at the main jail complex in New York City Rikers Island. If you're not connected to anyone who's in jail or is a correction officer, don't be numb to this and look the other way.

Here we are, on the last day of May, and as our Matt Katz reports, the federal Monitor who oversees Rikers Island is now criticizing, in court, Correction Commissioner Louis Molina, over the handling of five incidents in city jails in May, five incidents this month alone, that the Monitor says are representative of a larger trend. You want to hear one of them? As Matt's report describes the Monitor's finding, after a man was assaulted by multiple other detainees, on May 17th, he was in obvious distress but was "left" naked and alone for at least three hours.

Although the video shows multiple staff passing by him during this time, none provided assistance. Those are quotes from the Federal Monitor's report, and here's one more from that report, before we bring Matt on with more details. A detainee in his 80s, with possible cognitive impairment, seriously underlying health issues, and limited English proficiency, was handcuffed behind his back and left alone in a pen, without a sink or toilet, for at least four hours, on May 20th, shortly after he arrived at Rikers.

This 80-plus-year-old man wound up in the intensive care unit at Bellevue Hospital, and again, this isn't just an alleged criminal lawyer's, or an advocacy group's allegations about these things. This is the US government's court-ordained monitor, who officially oversees Rikers. We can't be numb to this. With us now, WNYC public safety reporter, Matt Katz. Hi, Matt. Truly disturbing stuff. Thank you for coming on to discuss.

Matt Katz: Yes, for sure, Brian. This report came out on Friday night, before the three-day weekend. It was a special report issued by the Monitor. Normally, the Monitor and his team do three or four regularly scheduled reports throughout the year, but the monitor said that he was so taken aback by the lack of cooperation and the lack of information about these five disturbing incidents that the city, the Department of Correction, had provided him, that he felt it was necessary to alert the judge that these things were going on.

That the Department of Correction wasn't taking really his oversight seriously, and was putting detainees there, at imminent risk of death.

Brian Lehrer: Can you tell us more about the 80-year-old, or 80+ year-old? How did that incident start, and how did it end?

Matt Katz: Yes, this is somebody-- We don't have the name. We don't know why he was at Rikers, but he was just arrested. Again, he was in his 80s. Remarkable that somebody that elderly is at Rikers. He's there, and he refuses to go into an intake pen to be processed, but he also, according to the monitor, had cognitive impairment. He didn't understand English very well. He's also sick.

After trying to cajole him into going in and talking to him for quite some time, officers pulled and twisted his arms for about 30 seconds to get him into these restraints, and he's then held behind his back, handcuffed behind his back, for four hours. There's no bathroom, no sink available for him, and he ultimately goes to a medical clinic. Not until the following day, when he's found to have some severe internal injuries, blood in his urine, and he ended up at the ICU at Bellevue Hospital.

At that point, he was "compassionately released." That's the term of art that the city uses. He is no longer in city custody. That has also, in the past, meant that if somebody dies after they've been compassionately released, it does not go on the list of people who died in city custody, which keeps those numbers down. Again, last year, there were more deaths in city custody than-- The rate of death was higher than at any time in 25 years.

We're coming off a very deadly year, and we don't know what happened to this individual, but he ended up in the intensive care unit at Bellevue. We did find out this morning, there was reporting by The Times, and the news site Hell Gate just confirmed it. Another individual mentioned in this report, this is one of the five incidents, this guy was in his early 30s. He had some incident at the jail. It was described to the monitor as a heart attack.

That's what the department officially said, but now, there's reporting that he had a fractured skull, and he has died after being compassionately released. That was somebody in his early 30s, and that would be the third person who had been held at Rikers to die so far, this year.

Brian Lehrer: You're telling us, at very least, in these two cases, the guy in his 80s and the guy in his 30s, they were released under what's called compassionate release, which is often done as a compassionate act if somebody is in serious medical condition, but you're saying there may have been an ulterior motive in both of these cases, so that if they died, and the guy in his 30s did, they did not die, technically, in Correction Department custody.

Matt Katz: That has been the accusation when people have been compassionately released in the past, yes, because deaths, more than anything, have gotten the most attention when it comes to what's going on at Rikers, and it puts the city on the back of their heels when something like this happens. Of course, if somebody is on the verge of dying, that is what they do. They will release somebody, but the monitor's report just says that the emergency medical care is not being provided at Rikers Island.

The point, really, is that somebody is languishing for so long, in such distress, that they end up in the emergency room, in the ICU, and they are then released, because they are on the verge of death. There's one more example from this report, and again, the monitor had to use surveillance video and other means in order to find out what happened in these situations, because they said the department was uncooperative.

There's a guy who was assaulted, you mentioned him in your opening, that he was left naked and alone for at least three hours. He ended up so severely injured, once he was hospitalized, and that hospitalization was delayed, that he had multiple rib injuries. He had to be intubated, he had his spleen removed, and the monitor said the review of the video suggests that there are aspects of this incident that may be criminal in nature.

The monitoring team is not saying that there's a cover-up, but the monitoring team is sure indicating that the Department of Correction and the city are not properly investigating incidents, and of course, are not taking care of people. This same incident, the video shows multiple staff passing by him while he's in obvious distress, but nobody provided assistance.

Eight years after this monitor was installed because of severe use of force by officers, and severe violence at Rikers, our data, that we've accumulated, shows that things are only worse. The death rate is worse, and the monitor, in the eight years that he's been there, is more alarm now than ever.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, we welcome your calls on the five incidents in May alone, or the bigger picture of ongoing life-threatening dysfunction at Rikers Island, and what should be done about it. 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. We sometimes get calls from detainees at Rikers. You are more than welcome to call in if you're listening there and have access to some phone rights right now.

212-433-WNYC, 433-9692, or any family members, lawyers, or anyone else with connections to people and conditions there, any corrections officers. We definitely want to hear your voices as well. How can this happen? Are these your colleagues? Anybody want to speak candidly off the record? As a correction officer, you can use an assumed name. We don't care about that. Anyone else? 212-433-WNYC. 212-433-9692.

For our public safety reporter, Matt Katz, you can also text a thought or question to that number as well, for Matt. 212-433-9692. Matt, I want to go back to this question of cover-up, this whole other level to the monitor's allegations. The treatment of the man we were talking about last, the guy who, on May 17th, was in obvious distress, according to the monitor's language, but was left naked and alone for at least three hours and wound up severely injured, with multiple rib injuries.

Once he was really diagnosed, requiring intubation and the removal of his spleen, but the treatment of that man was not reported to the monitor, and only came to light to the monitor via other sources. The monitor, you report, was also denied a briefing on the incident. Is the Adams administration covering up correction department malpractice?

Matt Katz: The monitor did not use that phrase, for sure. The monitor's issue is that the department is not cooperating with the monitor. That the monitor has a legal mandate supported by court orders and precedent over the last eight years, that his team will get briefed on serious incidents, like deaths. They requested a briefing on this incident. They were denied. They had to go to the video, and they only found out about it from what they called other sources.

They did not use that word, cover-up. I certainly don't have enough information to know what might have happened there. There has, I can say, been an issue with transparency when it comes to the Department of Correction under the Adams administration, for example, there's this Board of Correction. It's a oversight agency. It's in the city charter. They're in charge of ensuring that minimum standards at Rikers Island are met. Just a few months ago, they lost all direct immediate video access to Rikers Island.

They used to be able to-- Oh, there was an incident on May 17th, at so-and-so time, they used to be able to go onto a laptop, go into a folder, and look at the Myriad video that is available at Rikers, from body-worn cameras, from handheld cameras, from surveillance video. The Adams administration cut them off. They no longer can get video unfettered, if they want to see video, I believe they have to make an appointment on certain days, and know specifically what they want to look at.

They've said that makes it far more difficult for them to investigate accusations from detainees, but also deaths. Much of what we know about deaths at Rikers Island in recent years comes from the Board of Correction reviewing video. That's how we know when officers neglected to take care of somebody who was clearly injured, or we know, if somebody gets beaten up, that it's other detainees who ended up taking them to the medical clinic, because officers don't help.

We know about all these instances of what appear to be officer negligence because of Board of Correction, and now the Board of Correction, they've really been cut down here, by the Department of Correction. There's a lot less oversight, and there's just, in general, less transparency under this Department of Correction than had existed prior.

Brian Lehrer: Christopher, in Manhattan, you're on WNYC. Hi, Christopher. Thank you for calling in.

Christopher: Hi, Brian. Thanks so much. I really appreciate this story. I am the executive director of a program called the Crime Victims Treatment Center, and we offer support to incarcerated survivors of sexual violence. We work at 13 facilities across the state, and some federal facilities, have been welcomed very openly, and have not had the same experience with Rikers, where we know that is a rampant problem, and have been unable, over the course of many years, to establish a program.

I think that it speaks to the ongoing issues at Rikers, that really have not been addressed appropriately by the systems of our city, and continue to be ignored and pushed away.

Brian Lehrer: Christopher, do you have a theory as to why? Matt, I'm going to ask you this question too, the kinds of things we've just been hearing laid out from the Federal Monitor's report, that seem to be negligent, at best, on the part of corrections officers, with these people, five, in just May alone, who were in such obvious physical distress, plus what you were just describing. Do you have any theory as to why individuals or the system would behave like this?

Christopher: It's incredibly difficult for me to understand or make a theory, and Matt, if you have one, I'd love to hear it. I think just a lack of willingness to acknowledge basic humanity of people who are detained pretrial. It's really challenging for me to understand the ignoring of compliance of the Prison Rape Elimination Act, in so many ways, and the unwillingness to offer just basic human support. Unfortunately, [chuckles] I don't have a theory other than a complete unwillingness to recognize humanity, in some cases.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you for sharing your experience, Christopher. Matt, same question. Why?

Matt Katz: This is an unsatisfactory answer, but what you hear a lot is that the culture is broken, the culture of Rikers, and that the only way to improve the situation, to make it just a more humane environment there, is by closing it and starting fresh, at new, smaller, more humane facilities. That's therefore been the push by activists for several years now, shut it down, close Rikers. That's what the city council did a couple years ago.

They voted to mandate that Rikers is closed, and now, it should be, supposed to be, even in four years. There's construction now, at four jails, in all of the boroughs, except for Staten Island, smaller jails, where all the population of Rikers is supposed to move to. However, under Mayor Adams, the population of Rikers has increased. There's about 6,000 people there now, and the new facilities only have room for 3,300 people.

It is unclear if and when Rikers can ever close, and if that culture, what formerly incarcerated people say, what corrections officers say, breeds inhumanity and violence, and makes it logistically difficult to keep everybody safe and to get everybody to medical care quickly, to an adequate facility, all of that. It's unclear if it can close now, because the population is too high, and the city had planned for a smaller number of people, because at that point, when they were planning these new facilities, there were less people incarcerated.

Where this goes is unclear. It was interesting to hear the gentleman who just called, because there have also been other cuts in recent weeks, that might have slipped past people's radar. The Adams administration, and this is in the current budget that hasn't been approved yet, but the plan is to eliminate $17 million from the Department of Correction by getting rid of programs that help detainees get jobs, find housing, stay off drugs, once they're released.

These are plans for reentry, and to help people with work skills, like plumbing, financial literacy, behavioral therapy, all that kind of stuff. That's been eliminated. The fear, therefore, is that people will leave Rikers and fall back into drugs, will not have stable housing, will end up, therefore, back at Rikers, population only increases, plan to close it becomes less likely, and therefore, rinse, wash, repeat. The cycle continues.

Brian Lehrer: Johnny, in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Hi, Johnny.

Johnny: Hi. Yes. I wanted to say that this system, that I have personally been a part of, had to deal with-- When I was accused of doing something that I didn't do, I nearly died in the system, couple of times. There is in place a gang, since-- That they are choosing who they're going to make their [unintelligible 00:19:58]. When they go out of state, they grab the individual, and that person has to start bringing in money from the outside, or else they get killed, they get maimed, they get injured.

The system, the policing system, is complacent. They like it like that. They see how the gangs police themselves, and they make deals with these people. These gangsters make deals with the police, so that they could keep on doing that. Those people are getting money. There is corruption, up and down the system. This is why things are happening. I'm still pissed off, because I nearly died for something I didn't do. This has to stop. That's it.

Brian Lehrer: Johnny, thank you. Thank you. I'm sure that was hard. Doing that in public, and sharing that experience. Matt, he's alleging corruption. Have you reported on alleged corruption between gangs who really controls security, to some degree, at Rikers, and correction officers?

Matt Katz: We hear from people inside that the correction officers and the people who are locked up often come from the same communities, they know each other, there are gang affiliations, guards or officers are threatened because gang members might be able to know who they are, and know where they live, back on the outside. Every few months, we get reports about a handful of correction officers arrested, for maybe smuggling fentanyl in, dealing drugs, in that regard.

It's hard to know-- We talked to the correction officers' unions, and they say these are isolated incidents. That's also what the Department of Correction says, that the vast majority of their workforce are doing the hardest job in city governments, and face under very difficult conditions there. The correction officers' unions always talk about how often officers themselves are attacked, spit on, urine thrown at them, attacked, sexually assaulted.

It's hard to know how widespread it is, but the lack of safety that the caller just spoke of is just apparent. While he was speaking, I pulled up some of the latest numbers. There were 439 fight incidents last month. That's just what we know, that was what was reported. There were the slashings, and stabbings actually went down a good amount last month, there were 19, there were 32 last month. Last year, at one point, there were 66 in a month.

These are slashing, stabbings, people using sharpened plexiglass, razors, other items, to hurt people. Then there's dozens of allegations of use of force every week, there have been almost 2,000 so far, looks like, in the second quarter of this year. Oh, and the assaults on staff, I should mention, because they always talk about that. 53 assaults on staff just last month. It just seems, from the outside-- Obviously, we're not there every day, but it seems just so violent.

It does not seem like there's a way to get past this. The mayor's office and the Department of Correction had an action plan that they got approved by the federal judges overseeing Rikers last year, and this action plan was supposed to make things safer. You can look at some measures, month to month, and it does appear that stabbings and slashings drop, and use of force drops, but then it picks back up a little bit, and the trend lines never consistently decrease. It just seems like we're stuck in this.

Brian Lehrer: When we come back from the break, I want to ask you about the federal monitor himself, and that office itself. If these incidents in May were so numerous and so disturbing, and at least one wound up with a death, why did they release this report that even implies a cover-up on the part of the Adams administration? That's how serious this is. Why did they release this report on Friday night, going into Memorial Day weekend?

One would think that that's when a report gets released, that they don't want to get any attention. Frankly, that's one of the reasons we decided to lead with it today. I'm going to ask you about the federal monitors' office itself when we come back, and more of your calls, folks, then Senator Gillibrand on the debt ceiling deal. Stay with us.

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Brian Lehrer, on WNYC, with our public safety reporter Matt Katz, on the topic of the federal monitor who oversees Rikers Island criticizing in a new report released Friday night, releasing to a court, and criticizing Corrections Commissioner Louis Molina over the handling of five incidents in city jails in May, five incidents in this month, that ends today, alone, that the monitor says a representative of a larger trend that leaves people in ongoing imminent danger if they are detainees at Rikers Island.

Matt, as I said before the break, I was going to ask you, what about the federal monitors' office itself, this report with these astonishing allegations of misconduct and neglect was released on Friday night, going into Memorial Day weekend, that's when government generally releases things that they want to bury, and nobody's watching part of the news cycle. Was that timing on the release of the monitors' office a decision for that reason?

Matt Katz: I've been wondering this since it dropped on Friday night. On one hand, these were all incidents that had just happened in May. Maybe the monitoring team was literally getting as much information as they could, writing this report as detailed as possible, it finally got done on Friday afternoon, and they filed it with the court. That was just a circumstance of the timing. They're writing this for the judge.

This is not necessarily meant for public consumption, although they do post it on a website, and they very well know that it leads to new stories, every time they say something. I did also find that somewhat peculiar, but I'm going to take them for face value that maybe they just had to finish the report. The monitor himself, he's quite the congenial guy and really wants to work with the department. He has very much shown a reluctance to really poke him in the eye for no reason.

Even the language in this report was so much harsher than his previous filings to the court, that maybe giving it to the court on a Friday evening to avoid further public embarrassment was part of his plan here. It's really been interesting. He's worked somewhat closely with the Adams administration so far, and been reluctant to say that the Adams administration can do the job.

He has repeatedly said that he sees hopes for Commissioner Molina, the Department of Correction Commissioner there, that he is starting to make improvements, and all of the previous reports have said that. This was the first one where he's like, "Wait a second, Molina does not appear to be transparent with us, he's not being straightforward with us, and he's not cooperating with us."

The monitor himself, we did a deep dive into him about six months ago. Him and his team have collected more than $18 million since they got in, eight years ago. This was when US Attorney Preet Bharara was around, he was involved in this consent decree that brought the monitor in. Yet, since he came in, we found the rate of fights and assaults per detainee nearly doubled, people in custody are seven times more likely to be seriously injured by another detainee.

Staff are almost twice as likely to be assaulted, slashings and stabbings have increased each of the last four years, so there's been no clear improvements since he got in. That's why the other party to the suit, which is the Legal Aid Society, public defenders, have wanted a federal receiver, like a full-on takeover, not a monitor, somebody who would actually strip the power to run Rikers away from the city, and put it in this omnipotence federal receiver.

The judge on the case, judge Laura T. Swain, has not yet allowed any sort of formal motion for that. The other party on the case, Preet Bharara's successor, Damian Williams, who was attorney, has also not asked for a receiver, but that's, again, where the activists are going, and the defense attorneys are going, in the wake of this most recent news, in this most recent report.

Brian Lehrer: Amy, in Manhattan, has a question about the federal monitor, I think. Amy, you're on WNYC, with Matt Katz. Hi.

Amy: Hi, Brian. Hi, Matt. It's actually two questions. One is-- I didn't really get an impression of the number of incidents in the last month, if that's typical of the overall, I think, with eight years period. The other thing, more of a comment, is that-- Brian, you might remember a code in a segment about police violence, and how it keeps popping. There's a reporter undercover, covering this in the training academy, or whatever it's called. Is anybody looking at how correction officers are trained?

Brian Lehrer: Yes, well, great question. Matt? If they talk about training as one of the remedies to police brutality, what about correction officer brutality? Is there training or retraining? Is that part of the solution, imperfect as it may be?

Matt Katz: Yes, that could be helpful. What I hear from correctional officers, and for people inside, that-- This job is beyond just being a law enforcement officer who knows how to handle violent incidents. It's being a social worker, a psychiatrist, and understanding how to-- EMT, you have to administer naloxone when somebody's overdosing. This job is so multifaceted, that-- How much training is necessary in order to make them able to go in there and do it?

I will say, though, the department did just reduce the number of weeks that somebody needs to be trained at the academy. They're building a new correction academy. They've been working out of the police training facility. I forget exactly the number of weeks, but they no longer have to be at the-- The actual training numbers have actually decreased. The training weeks have actually decreased.

Again, I don't know how much training can be done in order to train somebody to provide all of the various services that are necessary inside a place like Rikers. Half of the population there has been diagnosed with a mental illness. These are complicated problems that take a unique set of skills in order to handle with care and with safety. It's hard to know if training can make a difference.

Brian Lehrer: One would think that training would have already included not just walking past a person, as happened on May 17th, who is in obvious distress, and leave that person naked and alone for at least three hours. That was caught on video. That was in the monitor's report. You don't train somebody to leave that person naked and alone in an obvious physical distress. The training-

Matt Katz: Right.

Brian Lehrer: -can only go so far toward changing human behavior.

Matt Katz: Sure, but maybe the people who are walking by, the officers walking by, were being dispatched to another emergency. Maybe there was a fight. Maybe there was an officer in distress around the corridor.

Brian Lehrer: Right.

Matt Katz: The snapshot of that is horrifying. The idea of somebody lying there and somebody who can help them and is paid, by city taxpayers, just ignores them, that's deeply upsetting. The context of that situation might add some nuance. Given the fact that the department didn't provide any information about this to the monitor, that's all we know at this point.

Brian Lehrer: We have Senator Gillibrand standing by. I just want to ask you one closing question. You said the lawyers representing the plaintiffs in the original case, that led to the federal monitor's appointment eight years ago, now want the court to impose federal receivership. That is control of and responsibility for Rikers, going from the city, with just a monitor, to the federal government itself.

How would federal receivership be different from oversight by a federal monitor? If you know, are there other localities jails around the country that are under federal receivership, and has it mattered there?

Matt Katz: Yes, there have been some smaller facilities that went under federal receivership, and over a course of many years, there appeared to be improvements. The federal receiver would be able to scrap contracts potentially, maybe change the provision in the correction officer's contract, that gives them unlimited sick time. They'd be able to get rid of the upper-- There's a rule that people have to come from within the Department of Correction in order to elevate to the upper brass of the department.

The receiver could potentially change that, and bring in a lot of outside experts, instead of people who came up in Rikers, to help run the place. Work rules could change. It though does seem that even if a receiver come in, it wouldn't be a quick fix. It would still take some time in order to really change what we talked about earlier, and that's what appears to be a broken, violent culture there.

Brian Lehrer: WNYC public safety reporter, Matt Katz. You can also read his full story on this federal monitor's report on Rikers, as well as his other work, at gothamist.com. Matt, thanks for describing it with us.

Matt Katz: Appreciate it, Brian.

 

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