New York Metropolis has agreed to pay greater than $28 million to settle a lawsuit filed by the household of Nicholas Feliciano, who suffered extreme mind harm after he tried to hold himself in a Rikers Island jail cell as greater than half a dozen correction officers stood by.
If accredited by a decide, it is going to be among the many largest pretrial settlements ever to be awarded to a single plaintiff in a civil rights case in New York Metropolis.
Mr. Feliciano was 18 and had a protracted historical past of psychiatric hospitalizations and suicide makes an attempt when he was despatched to Rikers in late 2019 on a parole violation. When he tried to hold himself on Nov. 27 of that yr, guards watched as he flailed his arms however didn’t intervene even after he grew to become limp, video footage obtained by The New York Instances exhibits.
The Bronx district lawyer filed felony expenses in opposition to three of the guards and a captain in 2022. Final yr, two of the guards pleaded responsible to official misconduct, a misdemeanor, and prevented jail time. The instances in opposition to the captain and the remaining officer are pending.
For the previous 4 years, Mr. Feliciano has obtained round the clock care, first on the Bellevue Hospital Middle after which at a rehabilitation facility the place he should use a walker to get round, mentioned his grandmother, Madeline Feliciano, 57. He can not eat with out help, has short-term reminiscence loss and struggles to recollect visits with household and mates or the issues he did the day earlier than, she mentioned.
The proposed settlement, Ms. Feliciano mentioned, will assist his household look after him at residence. A last resolution within the case may come as early as subsequent week.
“It’s not going to carry Nicholas again to who he was,” she mentioned, including that, at 22, “he has to stay with this harm for remainder of his life.”
A Correction Division spokeswoman mentioned the company has taken steps to cut back self-harm amongst detainees by means of renovations to housing areas, together with the set up of fencing round models with a number of flooring. She mentioned officers are skilled to forestall suicides and acknowledge indicators of misery amongst mentally ailing detainees and that specialists are assigned to individuals who have a historical past of making an attempt to hurt themselves.
However the New York Metropolis Board of Correction, a jails oversight panel, mentioned in a latest report that most of the issues that had given rise to Mr. Feliciano’s case have solely worsened.
Over the previous three years, at the very least 18 mentally ailing detainees have killed themselves or died of drug overdoses or different causes, information and interviews present. And the variety of detainees with psychiatric wants has risen: About one in 5 folks held on Rikers has some type of severe psychological sickness.
The New York Instances obtained Division of Correction jail surveillance and body-worn digicam footage that was gathered by a regulation agency, Beldock, Levine & Hoffman, which represented Mr. Feliciano and his household of their lawsuits in opposition to town. Depicting the occasions main as much as Mr. Feliciano’s suicide try in a holding pen, and the inaction of correction workers members, the movies provide a uncommon have a look at what can befall mentally ailing detainees on Rikers, the place they’re typically topic to harsh circumstances, inhumane remedy and insufficient supervision.
‘I’m bleeding, I’m bleeding’
Mr. Feliciano’s lawyer, David B. Rankin, mentioned the Division of Correction failed his consumer the second he entered Rikers. Mr. Feliciano, who was identified with medical despair, was positioned in a common inhabitants housing space recognized for gang violence as an alternative of in a psychological well being unit. He was not initially given the antipsychotic medicine he had been taking whereas at residence. Mr. Feliciano’s case, Mr. Rankin mentioned, “exhibits how town has no means to run a jail.”
Mr. Feliciano’s psychological well being wants had been recorded in meticulous element, together with throughout his first stint on Rikers in 2018, when at 16, he spent weeks on suicide watch and advised workers about his bouts of despair. They had been additional documented when he obtained remedy on psychological well being models, and recorded once more when he landed in a city-run juvenile heart, the place he needed to be hospitalized a number of occasions for harming himself. He as soon as lower himself, and utilizing his blood, wrote “RIP” throughout the housing space plexiglass, in accordance with a report by the Board of Correction.
Regardless of this historical past of psychiatric issues, Mr. Feliciano was rated as being at zero threat of suicide when he landed on Rikers in November 2019.
On Nov. 27, at about 5:30 p.m., Mr. Feliciano was attacked by a number of detainees. It was his second violent encounter in two days, occurring as he tried to assist a pal who was being assaulted by a number of folks. Video exhibits Mr. Feliciano bleeding from the left aspect of his physique and mouth. Officers remoted him in a holding pen for hours as he awaited transportation to an pressing care clinic.
Making a noose in plain sight
Mr. Feliciano first appeared to start looking out the ceiling for a weight-bearing object at 11:26 p.m., in accordance with nonetheless photos of video footage.
Over the subsequent 5 minutes, he fashions his clothes right into a makeshift noose. One officer, Kenneth Hood II, stands straight in entrance of Mr. Feliciano’s cell for a full minute, watching as Mr. Feliciano ties his clothes to a U-shape hook within the ceiling, exams his weight in opposition to it and briefly wraps it round his neck. Then he unties himself, picks up a close-by plate of meals and sits on a steel bench.
Alone and shirtless within the cell, Mr. Feliciano seems to faucet the fork nervously in opposition to the plate. He grows agitated whereas talking to a captain and two correction officers, together with Mr. Hood, and he jumps as much as throw the plate at them. The guards rush from the world.
The captain, Terry Henry, walks again previous Mr. Feliciano, seeming to snort and gesture towards him. Mr. Feliciano walks to the sweater he had hooked up to a ceiling fixture above the bathroom. (It was the identical ceiling hook that had been utilized in a suicide try by one other mentally ailing man, Angel Richards-Bailey, six days earlier, and it was imagined to have been eliminated by the point Mr. Feliciano was put within the cell, two folks with data of the incident mentioned.)
Having already tied one sweatshirt to the ceiling, he climbs atop a partition to connect a second sweatshirt to the cell bars, video exhibits.
Seven minutes and 51 seconds of inaction
What occurred subsequent was documented in a 2019 Instances investigation of the incident, however the newly obtained movies provide a firsthand have a look at the inaction of 9 jailers who stood by, walked previous or glanced over at Mr. Feliciano’s cell for seven minutes and 51 seconds as he flailed on the finish of the sweatshirts.
After climbing atop the privateness partition at 11:41 p.m., Mr. Feliciano wraps the sweatshirts round his neck and jumps down, video exhibits. Inside seconds, he struggles to tug himself up, however the suggestions of his toes barely contact the ground.
Officer Daniel Fullerton, finishing paperwork close to a sales space, sometimes appears to be like over at cell 11 the place Mr. Feliciano is hanging, however he doesn’t intervene, video exhibits.
Officer Mark Wilson walks to the cell, opens the door, appears to be like at Mr. Feliciano for a second after which closes the door and walks away, video exhibits. At 11:43 p.m., officer Jean Lantigua-Peña, papers in hand, appears to be like over on the cell, and officer Nicholas Prensa walks into and out of the world. Neither officer strikes to assist Mr. Feliciano.
A minute later, two paramedics pushing a person on a gurney enter the body together with two different correction officers. Over the subsequent three minutes the paramedics, Jimmy Guailacela and Stephen Sham, and correction officers, Honest Crowell and Peter Moses, look in Mr. Feliciano’s path a number of occasions, however don’t come to his help, the video exhibits. (Mr. Guailacela was promoted to lieutenant in 2021.)
The person on the gurney, Alfonso Martinez, was a pal of Mr. Feliciano’s, and he mentioned in a earlier interview with The Instances that he shouted for somebody to assist however was ignored.
Six minutes after Mr. Feliciano jumped, Officer Hood and Officer Kostantinos Makridis stroll previous the cell towards a close-by door. Officer Makridis slows down, stops and leans in towards the cell bars to get a more in-depth have a look at Mr. Feliciano’s immobile physique.
Medical consideration
Three guards enter Mr. Feliciano’s cell. Officer Henry cuffs one among his wrists, whereas Officer Fullerton untwists Mr. Feliciano from the sweatshirts at 11:49 p.m.
They fall again as Mr. Feliciano crumples to the ground. Officer Makridis makes an attempt chest compressions, however he locations his arms within the incorrect place, on Mr. Feliciano’s stomach, till Captain Henry corrects him. Officer Makridis continues the compressions for about two minutes, continuously stopping then beginning once more, as Captain Henry and Officer Fullerton seem to fumble with a defibrillator.
Round this time, jail medical workers enter the cell and take over. At 12:45 a.m., greater than an hour after Mr. Feliciano had tried to hold himself, paramedics place him on a stretcher to take him to a close-by hospital.
The Division of Correction’s investigations division later discovered that each one 9 of the guards who didn’t intervene had didn’t do their job, information present. Six — Officers Hood, Makridis, Prensa, Fullerton and Wilson and Captain Henry — had been suspended with out pay for 30 days.
The Bronx district lawyer charged 4 of the guards in 2022. Two of them, Mr. Fullerton and Mr. Wilson pleaded responsible to misdemeanor expenses. Mr. Fullerton resigned and Mr. Wilson was fired. The opposite two, Captain Henry and Officer Hood, are nonetheless awaiting trial.
After the guards had been indicted, the correction officers’ union mentioned that the case in opposition to them was “being pushed extra by politics than by info.”
Mr. Lantigua-Peña resigned in Might 2020. Officers Moses and Crowell had been charged with “procedural violations” by the division however weren’t suspended or placed on modified obligation and are nonetheless working within the jails.
Earlier than they ever encountered Mr. Feliciano, seven of the guards had confronted disciplinary expenses and complaints from supervisors for offenses starting from mendacity on official information and failing to oversee detainees to utilizing extreme power and strolling off the job.
Captain Henry, the supervisor who didn’t intervene as Mr. Feliciano was hanging, had been disciplined in an analogous case in 2015, when, as a correction officer, he failed to assist a person convulsing on the ground, in accordance with a lawsuit. The person died, and town settled the lawsuit for $1.59 million.
Captain Henry, who nonetheless works within the jails, has had at the very least 14 complaints or disciplinary expenses through the years. Half of these complaints had been logged within the years after Mr. Feliciano was on Rikers, jail information present.
