Jail officials have been “deliberately indifferent to harm” of the young inmates by failing to make sure incidents are properly reported, failing to appoint enough supervisors, failing to conduct thorough investigations and failing to discipline staff for using excessive force, the lawsuit says.
New York’s 11,000 daily inmate jail system has come under increased scrutiny this year since The Associated Press first reported the deaths of two seriously mentally ill inmates at Rikers and other problems.
Subsequent investigations by the news media, city investigators and lawmakers have drawn attention to the jails, whose problems de Blasio has said were decades in the making and will not be changed overnight.
But Bharara’s lawsuit seeks more immediate cultural change at Rikers. The culture described in the complaint is one in which jail guards will yell “stop resisting” when beating an inmate, use abusive language to provoke inmate fights, intimidate inmates into not reporting beatings by pressuring them to “hold it down,” and failing to employ even basic investigative steps to verify incident report forms.
“To date, defendants have failed to take sufficient and effective measures to remedy these deficiencies,” the suit says.
On Wednesday, a Rikers Island guard was convicted of a civil rights charge after a jury concluded he ignored the pleas of a dying inmate who had swallowed a toxic soap ball.
Terrence Pendergrass shook his head repeatedly as the verdict was announced Wednesday in Manhattan federal court. Pendergrass was charged in the death of 25-year-old Jason Echevarria, who had bipolar disorder and was being held on a burglary charge, CBS New York reported.
Article Appeared @http://www.cbsnews.com/news/feds-sue-nyc-over-deep-seated-culture-of-violence-at-rikers-island-jail/