New York Jail Guards Accused Of Watching An Inmate Commit Suicide

2024 Author: Steven Freeman | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 08:15

An 18-year-old man is in an induced coma after trying to commit suicide in the criticized Rikers Island prison in New York on Thanksgiving day, without the guards who were guarding him allegedly intervening, although they observed for several minutes his attempt to remove himself. life.

According to press reports, Nicholas Feliciano had been transferred to a special cell after being involved in a fight with seven other inmates in which he was wounded in the head.

According to The New York Times, instead of being taken to the infirmary to heal his wound, the young man with a history of suicide attempts began jumping from bench to bench shirtless in the special cell, until he tried to hang himself from a pipe with his own clothes.

Two people present assured the newspaper that the guards observed the suicide attempt through security cameras for seven minutes without at any time trying to prevent it.

Once the young man was finally picked up, it took half an hour for the emergency services to get him out of jail in order to receive medical assistance, according to those same witnesses. Feliciano is currently in the hospital in an induced coma with no brain activity.

The president of the prison guards union, Elias Husamudeen, defended the actions of the guards involved in the incident.

"They draw a story that four officers stopped to watch for seven minutes [the suicide attempt], when nothing could be further from the truth. That never happened, "he assured the Gothamist website.

Feliciano was arrested on November 19 and transferred to Rikers for violating the terms of the probation he was in as part of serving a sentence for theft, according to various reports.

According to Gothamist, he had apparently traveled to New Jersey to see his girlfriend without obtaining the permission required by his probation. In addition, he had tested positive for a drug test, failed to comply with mandatory treatment and, according to text messages found on his personal phone, had purchased or attempted to purchase a firearm.

Under current legislation, ex-prisoners on parole are immediately arrested for violating the conditions of their release and it may take weeks and months before they can defend themselves before a judge.

Four guards have been suspended and two others may be suspended soon while their performance is under investigation, according to the Times.

Years of incidents, controversy and reports of living conditions in Rikers recently led New York City to launch a plan that will lead to its closure in a maximum of seven years.