The last inmate to die on Rikers sought medical attention the day before his death
The Rikers Island inmate who died Tuesday morning was examined by a prison doctor the day before his death but was sent back to his housing unit, according to a senior city prison official familiar with the case.
Anthony Jordan, 63, was found “unresponsive” on the sixth floor of the North Infirmary Command on Rikers at 5:22 a.m. and taken to Mount Sinai Hospital in Astoria, according to Patrick Rocchio, a Department of Corrections spokesman. He was pronounced dead about an hour later.
The North Infirmary Command is used to accommodate inmates with complex medical needs who, in the opinion of medical staff, do not require external hospitalisation.
Jordan sought additional medical attention at the facility’s clinic on Monday for an unspecified issue, the prison source said. Inmates can seek additional medical care — typically from nurses or mental health clinicians — by submitting a request for a consultation and evaluation.
Officials at the Correctional Health Service, which is responsible for providing medical care to people incarcerated in the city, declined to provide further details about why Jordan was in the department or what illness he had complained of a few hours before his death.
Rejected?
Lawyers and former insiders say the events leading to Jordan’s death indicate possible abuse of his health care.
“Obviously he was turned away and his death could have been prevented,” said Anne Petraro, who worked as a doctor at Rikers during the de Blasio administration.
She noted that “unfortunately,” medical staff in prisons often treat people as if they were faking their pain or discomfort.
Correctional Health Services (CHS) reviews every death to determine if it is “prison-related” – meaning the death is a direct result of poor treatment while in custody. But CHS never publicly releases its “morbidity and mortality” reports. Critics say the opaque policy allows medical staff to evade responsibility and fails to lead to much-needed reforms.
CHS officials say they cannot make their reports public because of a federal law that prohibits the release of private medical records. The agency even refuses to publicly disclose whether a deceased inmate repeatedly missed scheduled doctor visits.
Last August, City Councilwoman Carlina Rivera (D-Manhattan), former chair of the Criminal Justice Committee, introduced a bill that would require correctional health services to make their findings public and require prison officials to inform the media whenever there is a death in the city’s jails.
The bill appears to be moving slowly through the legislative process, and a hearing to discuss its merits has not yet been scheduled.
Rivera’s office referred questions about the bill to City Council member Sandy Nurse (D-Brooklyn), who was appointed committee chair earlier this year. Nurse’s chief of staff did not respond to a text message seeking comment.
Jordan had been held at Rikers since April, awaiting trial for the alleged murder of his “longtime friend” Michael Smith, 47, in an East Harlem apartment on March 17, 2024.
He pleaded not guilty to charges of second-degree murder and third-degree illegal possession of a weapon at his April 10 arraignment, court records show.
At the time, the Manhattan District Attorney said: “The investigation into the incident, including the investigation into Jordan’s motive, is ongoing.”
His defense attorney did not respond to calls seeking comment.
Long calls for reforms
Jordan was the fifth person to die behind city bars so far this year. Nine people died while incarcerated by the city in 2023, 19 in 2022 and 16 in 2021.
Several of the city’s correctional officers and jailers have been disciplined in recent years for their alleged roles in inadequate care for deceased people, according to several reports from a federal inspector general who oversees the agency.
But prison advocates and prison reformers say medical staff are rarely subjected to disciplinary action or held publicly accountable in the aftermath of deaths.
“We always read about Corrections,” Marty Horn, who was DOC commissioner during the Bloomberg administration, told THE CITY last year. “We never read about CHS. That’s crazy.”
In addition, investigations into prison deaths are conducted by the Board of Correction and the federal Commission of Correction.
They publish their results online, but it often takes months, in some cases years, before they are made available to the public.
For each death, the Commission of Correction took an average of nearly two and a half years to complete its investigation, THE CITY reported in July 2020.
Critics say delays in reporting – and the lack of public reports from the CHS – have made it impossible for outsiders to spot trends as they unfold.
According to a former medical employee, CHS conducts internal audits and reports any problems it finds.
The Legal Aid Society, the city’s largest public defender organization, said Jordan’s death was further evidence that a federal judge must appoint a so-called receiver to take over the corrections agency.
“Leadership changes alone will not bring about reform; the DOC must now make significant changes to its practices and the standards of conduct it requires of its employees,” said Veronica Vela, an attorney with the Legal Aid Society’s Prisoners’ Rights Project.
The Adams government vehemently opposes the appointment of a receiver and argues that reforms are already underway and are taking effect.
Earlier this year, lawyers for Legal Aid and the Adams administration presented their cases to Laura Taylor Swain, Chief District Judge of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.
But it has given top priority to deciding whether the Department of Corrections should be held in contempt of court for ignoring previous court orders to implement comprehensive reforms to reduce violence.
Although numerous advocates and prison experts are pushing for the establishment of a receiver, Swain currently has no public plans to resolve the larger dispute.
