money Inmate dies at Rikers Island, becoming 15th death in NYC custody this year
Yet another detainee has died on Rikers Island — the 15th inmate to die in city custody this year.
Malcolm Boatwright, 28, was found Friday in the Anna M. Kross Center on Rikers and taken to Bellevue Hospital after experiencing what the Department of Correction described as a “medical issue.”
Boatwright died just after 5:30 a.m., the DOC said.
Boatwright had been in Rikers since Nov. 11 on charges including sexual abuse of a 6-year-old. He was ordered held without bail pending a psychiatric evaluation requested by his lawyer.
”This is a heartbreaking loss at the end of a very difficult year. My deepest sympathy goes out to Mr. Boatwright’s loved ones,” said DOC Commissioner Vincent Schiraldi.
In October, detainee Anthony Scott died at New York-Presbyterian Lower Manhattan Hospital after hanging himself in a Manhattan criminal court holding cell.
On Monday, the court-appointed federal monitor overseeing efforts to improve conditions at Rikers Island wrote that 2021 was the worst yet of six years of oversight.
“Data on uses of force, fights, stabbings, and slashings among people in custody and assaults on staff reveal that 2021 has been the most dangerous year,” the monitor wrote.
The department was burdened by staff that lacks “elementary skills,” the monitor wrote.
“This traps the department in a state of disrepair, where even the first step to improve practice is undercut by the absence of elementary skills — be it staff deployment, safety and security, or managing/supervising staff,” the 152-page report read.
“This all leaves the Department in a place where many of the requirements of the consent judgment are simply unattainable, and the consent judgment requirements are unlikely to be successful in bringing about improvements because the basic foundations needed to improve practices do not exist.”
Melania Brown, an activist and sister of Layleen Polanco, who died at Rikers in 2019, said judges and prosecutors should not send another person to the dysfunctional jail.
“This is so sad. This is just going to keep happening and nobody’s doing anything about it,” Brown said.
