Edwin Quispe became the ninth person to die this year in NYC Department of Corrections custody, or shortly after their release, when staff found the 33-year-old man unresponsive while being held at the Eric M. Taylor Center on Rikers Island.
Such incidents have become the reasoning behind the City Council passing a bill earlier this month mandating the DOC report custody deaths to the public and family members within 24 hours, as well as, to the Board of Corrections (BOC) oversight agency, the individuals’ attorney and the Office of the Medical Examiner. The bill awaits Mayor Eric Adams’ signature but is a few votes away from supermajority support.
“A notification from the DOC is the bare minimum form of decency and respect for those who are grieving the loss of loved ones,” said Public Advocate Jumaane Williams in a statement. “More and more people are losing their lives on Rikers, and this administration is providing less and less transparency. Passing Int. 0423 will help to make sure the Department of Correction (DOC) is held accountable for individuals who died in its custody, and is responsible for notifying the public of their passing.”
Exactly how the city notifies next-of-kin remains dubious. In 2023, the department quietly discontinued publicly reporting deaths in custody, although a spokesperson then maintained the decedent’s next-of-kin and legal counsel would be informed.
Multiple deaths went unreported at the time, including that of Joshua Valles, who suffered a fractured skull, despite jail officials claiming he died from a heart attack. A report from the independent monitor assigned from the Nunez class action lawsuit revealed the true extent of his injuries.
Ending public notifications for custody deaths led NYC Comptroller Brad Lander to question whether the 2023 death count was accurate. Even today, his DOC dashboard uses an asterisk when updating the reported death count in city jails.
The bill mandates not only family access to information, but belongings. Its main sponsor, City Council Member Carlina Rivera, learned from crafting the legislation that DOC discarded Brandon Rodriguez’s personal effects after his death before they could be collected by his mother Tamara Carter. “No mother should have to beg for her child’s belongings and be told they were tossed out like trash,” Rivera said.
Carter mentioned to the Amsterdam News that the Corrections Department did not notify her when Rodriguez died. Instead, she learned of her son’s death from a stranger’s Facebook message.
“When Brandon left this world, it was very disheartening not to receive his items,” said Carter. “Especially his phone being that it had pictures with his nieces and family. [DOC] were notified almost immediately that we wanted his things by my lawyer. And I think a week and a half in, they told me his items were destroyed. So that was very upsetting.
“When I had the chance to help [with] this bill, I was absolutely going for it. Any family will want their child, brother, uncle[‘s] items to keep forever like I have done with…all his stuff at home.”
Rivera says the legislation received input from advocates and impacted family members like Carter from Freedom Agenda, a member organization best known for championing the Rikers closure plan.
According to the bill, information about deaths in custody would be published on the Corrections Department website after the next-of-kin is notified, providing the public with the individuals’ name, age, race, gender and where they died.
“Nothing can bring back my brother,” said Freedom Agenda member Amariliz Torres, sister of Erick Tavira who died on Rikers in 2022, in a statement. “But the treatment my family received from the Department of Correction deepened our pain. The crushing news of any human being’s passing should be delivered with care and compassion to those who love them. And we should have transparency about the failures that led to their death.”
The bill also enables the agency to convene a Jail Death Review Board which Rivera hopes will enhance interagency cooperation. To be clear, not every death in custody stems from violent conditions on Rikers Island, which are often the focus of reforms like those posed by the 2015 Nunez settlement. Christian Collado died earlier this month in palliative care after he was detained by the DOC. However, the bill would mandate more transparency on jail staff whose misconduct contributed to a person in custody’s death.
“Accountability isn’t a choice, it’s a basic duty for this agency with so many New Yorkers in its care,” said Rivera. “And when there is no transparency, there is no trust and so at this point, we really must be diligent in defining the protocols that DOC must follow when notifying the family of a person in custody why they died or who suffered from a medical emergency.
“And that is important because [Rikers Island] is a place with such a deeply entrenched culture of dysfunction and abuse and violence so we need to be taking as many steps to increase transparency and also bring down the population.”
El proyecto de ley tiene que ,debe de haber es poner mas atencion a los presos cuando dicen estar enfermo, con algun dolor porque recuerdo la muerte del jovencito Ariel Quinone que se le exploto la appendices,por no ponerle atencion a tiempo. Yo tengo un sobrino que vivio todo esos momentos porque estaba en la misma instalacion que el y me dijo que se Ariel se arrastraba del dolor y no hacian nada