The death of Kalief Browder in 2023 infamously sparked sweeping criminal justice reforms to prevent low-level charges from ending in death sentences.
Accused of stealing a backpack but never convicted, the Bronx-born youth entered Rikers Island at 16 and spent three years of pre-trial detention facing hellish conditions, including solitary confinement and jail violence. Browder refused to plead guilty, but his family could not afford his bail. He took his life roughly a year after his release when a judge finally dropped his charges.
Despite rollbacks and Republican attacks, bail reform laws enacted in 2020 still largely prevent the city from detaining people arrested for and accused of low-level and nonviolent crimes on Rikers Island due to their bank account the way Browder was. Yet, New Yorkers continue dying in custody while facing minor charges — now before they see a judge. According to the NYPD, nine people died in police custody this year, which occurs after an arrest and before arraignment when a judge reads suspects their charges.
In August, Christopher Nieves, 46, and Musa Cetin, 29, each died in holding cells while awaiting arraignment. Both men faced minor charges. Nieves was accused of shoplifting food from a Brooklyn Whole Foods store and died from a health condition; Cetin was reportedly brought in for missing registration issues with his pedicab after a previous violation.
“The thought of Christopher suffering while waiting to receive medical treatment for hours in a jail cell, before he passed away, breaks my heart,” said Candice Nieves, sister of Christopher Nieves in a statement. “No matter the misconceptions about my brother, his life mattered and he didn’t deserve to die! The system failed him! He was my baby brother and I loved him dearly. 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 jail cell floor, ignored and alone.”
The heads of five public defense offices called on Mayor Eric Adams, Council Speaker Adrienne Adams, and NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch to address conditions in police lockups in a letter provided to the Amsterdam News this past week. Their demands follow nine deaths in NYPD custody this year. The letter was signed by Juval Scott, Bronx Defenders executive director; Tina Luongo, Legal Aid Society attorney-in-charge; Piyali Basak, Neighborhood Defender Service managing director; Stan Germán, New York County Defender Services executive director; and Lisa Schreibersdorf, Brooklyn Defender Services executive director. It provided a 10-point plan for how the city could reduce fatalities of New Yorkers detained by police after arrests and before arraignments.
“As the city’s public defenders, we are horrified that people arrested are at risk of dying in our city precincts and the central booking spaces in our courthouses,” they wrote. “We voice our collective demand that New York City take concrete steps to address the crisis of deaths taking place in police custody, including when individuals are arrested and awaiting arraignment.”
Their first demands were for the administration to “recognize the crisis of in-custody deaths and end broken windows policing,” as well as ending custodial arrests for low-level offenses. Under Tisch, the NYPD began deploying quality-of-life teams to police against non-emergency local disturbances from loud dirt bikes to homeless encampments. Advocates tie the strategy to “broken windows policing” to tackle visible signs of disorder to prevent the spread of crime often, a disproven strategy employed under former Mayor Rudy Giuliani.
In fact, Legal Aid Society Director of Special Litigation Meghna Philip believes the low-level arrests may violate the law. In 2020, statewide legislation went into effect, mandating police issue desk appearance tickets for most low-level charges like misdemeanors and some nonviolent felonies. As a result, most people facing minor charges should be allowed to return to arraignments on their own without police bringing them into custody, although custodial arrests for outstanding warrants, like Cetin’s, remain lawful.
“They’re violating a mandate by the legislature that they should be issuing appearance tickets in almost every low-level [arrest],” said Philip. “They’re violating the constitutional rights of people — they’re arresting people, holding them in these dangerous conditions, holding them at courthouses, and it’s resulting in death.”
Other demands included staffing non-NYPD EMTs at courthouses, increasing oversight by allowing City Council members to inspect lock-ups, and initiating probes into whether officers are trained in identifying potential suicidal behaviors from people in custody, as well as an investigation from the NYC Department of Investigation’s Office of the Inspector General-NYPD (OIG-NYPD).
The public defense heads also asked to increase officer accountability when a person dies in police custody. They called for allowing the Civilian Complaint Review Board (CCRB), the city’s independent NYPD oversight agency, to kick off their own investigations after a death, rather than waiting for a family member or friend to file a complaint. They also asked to amend the department’s disciplinary matrix to make failing to provide medical assistance a fireable offense in the event a successful CCRB prosecution is approved by the police commissioner.
Basak told the AmNews that the letter happened organically because public defense organizations across the city frequently communicated with each other and were long aware of the issues in custody.
“What we can visibly see is people being held for hours on end,” said Basak by phone. “Oftentimes, they have a mental health issue … if you have any underlying mental health or substance abuse or medical issues, it’s naturally going to be exacerbated by those conditions of confined cells and the number of people in the cells.”
On Monday, September 22, advocates and electeds took to City Hall, calling for implementation of the 10-point plan delineated in the letter. Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, City Comptroller Brad Lander, and councilmembers Tiffany Caban and Lincoln Ressler spoke in support.
“As a Jewish New Yorker, we have a saying: If you destroy a single life, it’s as though you have destroyed [an entire] world, so on its own, Christopher [Nieve’s] loss is a loss of a world [and] is a tragedy, accountability would be necessary,” said Lander. “Care and compassion would be necessary, but we’re not just talking about one incident right now.”
“I’m so sorry [for] the families,” added Williams. “Sorry is not enough, because a family member is not here, and we have to remember behind the names of people who were loved, their communities, they were family members, they were neighbors, they were friends, and they’re not coming back because they may have stolen some food.”
Caban, a former public defender herself, reflected on her past role. “You get really self-conscious about sounding like a broken record up here, but what we’re talking about is lives, so on its own, Christopher [Nieve’s] loss is a loss of a world [and] is a tragedy,” she said. “Accountability would be necessary. When I look at the public defenders behind me and the folks from Freedom Agenda and the Jails Action Coalition, there is nobody better equipped to tell us what the path forward looks like.”
The NYPD pointed to improvements from 2024, when 14 people died in police custody year-to-date.“It is important to note that the term ’death in-custody’ does not necessarily mean the death was caused as a result of police action,” said a police spokesperson. “Death in custody situations may occur anywhere (e.g., at the scene of an incident, at a hospital, at a police facility, or in a courthouse awaiting arraignment), and death may occur due to intervening circumstances beyond police control.
“Such intervening circumstances include medical crises such as heart attack or stroke; suicides; drug-related deaths from substances taken or ingested prior to custody.”
At least one demand from the letter will be realized: After the rally, NYPD Deputy Commissioner of Legal Matters Michael Gerber revealed the OIG-NYPD will issue a report on the custody deaths.
“While we welcome the Inspector General’s decision to investigate, accountability cannot end there,” said Philip in a later statement. “The City must confront the NYPD’s unlawful reliance on custodial arrests for low-level offenses, its failure to provide medical and mental health care, and the unsafe and inhumane conditions in precincts and courthouses.”