Relatives filed a lawsuit against New York City after a man choked on an orange at a Rikers Island prison while officers in charge did nothing to help him, settling $2.25 million, it reported. Daily News.
Identified as Herman Díaz, 52, he choked on a piece of orange on March 18, 2022 at the Eric Center. M Taylor, falling to the floor in front of an empty desk where he was waiting to be attended to by a corrections officer, family assured.
New York City Department of Correction photos obtained by the outlet confirmed no one was at the post.
There was another agent nearby working inside the unit’s glass-enclosed security booth, however, he did not leave his post to help the Hispanic.
Another inmate in the unit, Oslien Borroto, told detectives that Diaz’s fellow detainees “had to tell the officer (in the cabin) to get medical attention and medical attention never came.”
For his part, the security booth officer said he called for medical help, but staff at the city’s Correctional Health Services clinic said they did not receive any calls.
The detainees “had to remove Díaz from the housing area,” Borroto said, according to the Department of Corrections report on the event.
Four inmates took Díaz to the medical clinic, but the doctors could not save him, according to the evidence of the case.
The investigations found that about 10 minutes passed from the moment Díaz fell in front of the empty desk “B” and the security cabin with the staff until the moment the doctors tried to revive him.
In addition, records obtained through the state’s Freedom of Information Act showed that the piece of orange was high enough in Diaz’s throat that he would have received first aid before he could be saved, according to the attorneys. of the next of kin, Neil Wollerstein and Josh Keller.
This case is among several that occurred in 2021 and 2022 that have highlighted the costs of life and safety of personnel issues that continue to plague the Department of Corrections.
In a report issued in May 2022, the Board of Corrections explained that the lack of floor officers in the housing units was an ongoing problem at the Eric Center. M. Taylor of Rikers Island in the first half of last year.
“This was a preventable tragedy and the main issue here is that the DOC [Departamento de Corrección] has this open policy of accepting chronic and sustained absenteeism from its staff,” Wollerstein said.
“Unfortunately, that policy resulted in the death of Mr. Diaz,” Wollerstein added. “How many more deaths have to occur at Rikers because of this?”
In Diaz’s case, the empty desk was what is known as a “B” position and the glass-enclosed security booth where the officer who refused to help him was was an “A” position.
The Board of Correction, the city’s lead agency for the Department of Correction, recommended in a document issued in May 2022 that since the “B” booths are not staffed at all times, officers assigned to the “A” booths they must be available to leave their posts to provide inmates with first aid support.
On the other hand, the victim’s sister, Sonia Talavera, told the Daily News that she could not bear to see the video from the security cameras where her brother’s death can be seen at a recent court conference, so she He had to leave.
“It was horrible how he died. There was no one there to help him,” Talavera lamented. “You can never pay for the loss of a life. We miss my brother. It’s not the same without him.”
At the end of the events, none of the officers was disciplined in the case, the lawyers reported. The internal report of the Department of Correction confirmed this.
The officer in booth “A” was not disciplined because he was following Department of Corrections policy that required him to remain there, Keller and Wollerstein said.