19 yr Old Black Man Held Pre-Trial Got Locked into Cell, Beat and Cut Over 100 Times at Rikers Island, a Reprehensible Jail Run by Liberals. Rate of Violence 8X Greater than Other Municipal Jails
/
From [HERE] A 19-year-old Rikers Island Black teen pre-trial detainee was beaten and slashed after correction staff moved him to a chaotic unit where other detainees somehow got into his locked cell and left him unconscious and bleeding on the floor, his mother tells the Daily News.
The Rikers Island complex, which consists of ten jails, holds local offenders who are awaiting trial.
Marquise Thomas of Far Rockaway, Queens, suffered numerous slash wounds on his legs, back, thighs and neck in the Feb. 20 assault at the Robert N. Davoren Center on Rikers Island, according to his mother Trina Thomas, who says for weeks after the attack the Correction Department rebuffed her attempts to visit him.
“I want to know why would they move him, and then how they got in his cell at 1:30 in the morning. They could have murdered him in his sleep,” said Trina Thomas, 43. “He said he was cut over 100 times. The doctors said he was lucky to be alive.”
She said her son’s account of the ordeal began with officers pulling him out of his relatively peaceful unit at the Davoren Center about 10 p.m. on Feb. 19, telling him, “You’re going to have a fight, and if anyone gets stabbed or hurt bad, it won’t matter because the cameras are out.”
He tried to refuse, but was taken anyway with four other detainees to another unit where roughly eight inmates were causing a disturbance.
In the midst of the chaos, he was put in a locked cell — but at about 1:30 a.m. the raucous detainees somehow got through the locked door and attacked him, his mom said.
“He heard some loud noise and his [cell door] was being opened,” she said. “He tried to pull it shut, but they come in. The COs [correction officers] weren’t stopping it.
“Then, they were stabbing him in the hands. They beat him, stabbing him in his legs, thighs, and cut up his legs and thigh area. He’s laying in the fetal position.”
Thomas told his mother he passed out from blood loss as Emergency Services officers with pepper spray arrived to quell the disturbance. Those officers found him unconscious in the cell. He was then taken to Bellevue Hospital for two days.
In a statement, the Correction Department did not answer specific questions about Thomas’ slashing, but confirmed he was hospitalized and said the agency is pursuing charges against the detainees involved. A spokeswoman said staff could be disciplined once an investigation is concluded.
“We take assaults on people in our custody very seriously and we will not tolerate any form of violence in our facilities,” correction spokeswoman Danielle DeSouza said.
Assemblyman Khaleel Anderson, a Democrat who represents Thomas’ district, called for an independent investigation.
“The job description for correction officers is very clear: There’s a duty to ensure inmate safety, and we did not see that happen here,” he said. “It’s a tragedy, but it speaks to the culture of violence there. We have a jail system that’s not working.”
The incident comes as violence in New York City’s jails continues to be a significant problem, with the rate of violence “seven to eight times” greater than in other municipal jail agencies, according a March 16 report by the federal monitor overseeing the jails.
The monitor said there were more inmate fights in 2021 than in 2016, when the jail population was 40% higher. And there were 48 slashings in January, the second highest in any month since the monitor was installed in 2016.
Staff use of force also has increased in each year since 2016, the monitor said.
“An unfortunate and dangerous side effect of these high rates of use of force and violence is that they have become normalized,” the monitor wrote. “These high rates are not typical, they are not expected, they are not normal.”
Thomas was arrested Sept. 9 for four armed robberies of livery cab drivers in Queens and Manhattan last August and September and ordered held without bail.
He claimed to cops that the alleged “gun” used in the robberies was actually a cell phone case made to look like a gun and blamed a female accomplice, court records show. He’s pleaded not guilty.
Marquise’s defense lawyer, Risa Beth Procton, of Legal Aid declined to comment on the criminal case.
Thomas’ mother was on vacation in Hawaii and didn’t find out about the attack until three days later on Feb. 24, when her oldest son Michael Smith called to tell her.
Smith, 26, said he was devastated when he learned about it from a friend. “His legs were cut open. He got 30 stitches in his legs, 20 in his back,” he said. “He was having trouble walking and stuff like that.”
Trina Thomas then repeatedly called the Correction Department, but couldn’t get much information. Over the next month, she tried to visit her son, only to be rebuffed without explanation. Calls to the mayor’s office and 311 also went nowhere.
Out of frustration, she turned to Assemblyman Anderson, a former community activist who grew up in the same neighborhood. But even Anderson had trouble getting information from the Correction Department.
“By pushing and prodding, we were able to at least get him a few minutes on the phone, which is totally unacceptable. But it speaks to that culture that is festering on Rikers Island,” Anderson said.
Since the assault, the worried mom has only been able to see Marquise once — at a March 9 court date for less than 15 minutes.
“He could barely walk, and they wouldn’t give him a cane,” Trina Thomas said. “They had two officers helping him in and out of the room.”
She last spoke to him for just three minutes Thursday. Finally, after The News contacted the Correction Department, the agency called her to schedule an in-person visit.
Marquise Thomas is now in 23-hour a day lockdown in the West Facility, a jail sometimes used for inmates with communicable diseases.
