A 36-year-old Rikers Island detainee awaiting trial on an attempted murder charge was found dead in his bed Tuesday morning, marking the eighth death in city jail custody so far this year, The City Reporter has learned.
The man was arrested March 7 after allegedly punching a stranger in the face and ear at a subway station and trying to throw him onto the tracks in front of an incoming train, according to the NYPD.
The City Reporter is withholding his name until his next of kin is notified. He was found inside the Robert N. Davoren Center, one of the 10 jails on Rikers Island, according to a jail source familiar with the case.
Eight people have now died in city jail custody this year, following 15 deaths in 2025, five in 2024, nine in 2023 and 19 in 2022.
The cause of death was not immediately known. The Department of Correction had not issued a public announcement of the death as of Tuesday afternoon and did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The fatality comes as Correction Commissioner Stanley Richards and federal jail remediation manager Nicholas Deml are in the midst of coming up with a series of reform plans.
Richards has also talked about restricting physical mail in an effort to reduce drug soaked letters from coming into the system. A similar proposal failed to gain approval from the city’s oversight Board of Correction in 2023.
All deaths in custody are reviewed by the board and several other government agencies.
The board has issued multiple reports faulting jail officers and medical staff for failing to provide proper care in other deaths behind bars.
In September, the board issued a report into four recent deaths citing familiar breakdowns: correction officers failing to conduct meaningful tours of housing areas, inaccurate handwritten logbook entries, officers leaving their posts, and detainees gathering in unassigned areas because of broken cell doors.
In one particularly egregious case, John Price, 49, waited for roughly 3 ½ hours in a clinic holding pen in March without being seen because jail officers didn’t tell medical staff he was having a medical emergency.
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The post Eighth Detainee Dies on Rikers Island So Far This Year appeared first on The City Reporter.
