Let’s go to the videotape.
That’s what the city Correction Commissioner Louis Molina and Mayor Eric Adams say in response to the Nunez Independent Monitor’s damning report last week about the Correction Department’s alleged inability to properly care for and report on the welfare of inmates in their custody.
Disputing the federal monitor’s findings, Molina and Adams shared video with amNewYork Metro that, they argue, amounts to proof that the report is not completely accurate.
The Independent Monitor lambasted the city and DOC in a 21-page document that accused top brass of failing to report deadly and near-fatal incidents inside city jails, such as Rikers Island, while also failing to properly act in order to save lives to the best of their abilities. This is something DOC Commissioner Molina and Mayor Adams believe is erroneous.
The mayor and corrections commissioner presented several surveillance videos to amNewYork Metro of the recent tackling of one inmate, and the response to a suicide attempt, during a visit this week to Rikers. The Correction Department maintain that the videos demonstrate that their officers did not employ unnecessary use of force or acted inappropriately — countering charges made in the most recent monitor report.
However, the DOC — citing privacy issues — did not release the videos to amNewYork Metro for independent publication. We were, however, able to photograph still images of the videos in certain instances.
Even so, Mayor Adams opined, the screening was an “unprecedented” move by the city to demonstrate transparency regarding conditions on Rikers Island.
“We took this unprecedented step to say, ‘Look at these videos, and then look at the allegations and what we’re doing here,’” Mayor Adams said.. “We just believe [the release of the monitor’s report] caused a level of uproar that was unfair to the men and women who are here and the inmates who are trying to serve their time. It created the…
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