Most Recent Detainee to Die on Rikers Sought Medical Care the Day Before His Death

The Rikers Island detainee who died Tuesday morning was seen by a jail medical professional the day before his death, but was sent back to his housing unit, according to a top city jail official familiar with the case.

Anthony Jordan, 63, was found “unresponsive” on the sixth floor inside the North Infirmary Command on Rikers at 5:22 a.m. and rushed to Mount Sinai Hospital in Astoria, according to Correction Department records. He was pronounced dead approximately an hour later.

The North Infirmary Command is used to house incarcerated people with complicated medical needs that medical staff determine falls short of requiring outside hospitalization.

Jordan sought additional medical attention at the facility’s clinic on Monday for an undisclosed problem, according to the jail source. Detainees are able to seek extra medical care — typically handled by staff nurses or psychiatric clinicians — by submitting a request for a consult and exam.

Officials with Correctional Health Services, which oversees medical care for people behind bars in the city, declined to detail why Jordan was in the unit and what ailment he was complaining about hours before his death.

Brushed Off?

Advocates and former insiders say the events leading up to Jordan’s death point to a potential mishandling of his health needs.

“Obviously he was brushed off and his death could have been prevented,” said Anne Petraro, who worked as a medical clinician on Rikers during the de Blasio administration.

She noted that medical staff who work in jails “unfortunately” often treat people like they are faking their pain or discomfort.

Correctional Health Services (CHS) does review each death to determine if they are “jail attributable” — meaning the fatality was directly tied to poor treatment during incarceration. But CHS never publicly discloses its “morbidity and mortality” reports. Critics contend the opaque policy allows medical staff to duck accountability while also failing to implement much needed reforms.

CHS officials contend they are blocked from making their reports public by a federal law barring the sharing of private medical records. The agency refuses to even publicly disclose if an incarcerated person who died missed repeated scheduled medical visits.

“CHS does not create Morbidity and Mortality reports,” agency spokesperson Jeanette Merrill said last year. “Any materials resulting from these reviews are comprised entirely of protected patient health information and are, therefore, not shared externally.”

Last August, City Councilmember Carlina Rivera (D-Manhattan), the former chair of the Criminal Justice Committee, introduced legislation that would require Correctional Health Services to make its findings public as well as require jail officials to notify media whenever a death occurs in city lockups.

The bill appears to be moving slowly through the legislative process. A hearing to discuss its merits is scheduled for Sept. 24.

Rivera’s office deferred questions about the legislation to City Councilmember Sandy Nurse (D-Brooklyn), who was named head of the committee earlier this year.

Jordan had been held on Rikers since April, awaiting trial for the alleged murder of his “ longtime friend ” Michael Smith, 47, inside an East Harlem apartment on March 17, 2024.

He pled not guilty to charges of murder in the second degree and criminal possession of a weapon in the third degree at his arraignment on April 10, court records show.

At the time, the Manhattan district attorney said “the investigation into the incident, including Jordan’s motive, remains ongoing.”

His defense lawyer did not respond to calls seeking comment.

Long Calls for Reform

Jordan was the fifth person to die behind city bars this year so far. Nine people died while incarcerated by the city in 2023, 19 in 2022 and 16 in 2021.

Some city correction officers and jail supervisors have been disciplined over the past several years for their alleged role in failing to properly care for those people who have died, according to multiple reports by a federal monitor overseeing the department.

But medical staff rarely face discipline or any sort of public accountability following fatalities according to inmate advocates and jail reformers.

“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. It’s insane.”

Jail death reviews are also conducted by the Board of Correction and the state’s Commission of Correction.

They post their findings online but frequently take months, and in some cases years, before making them public.

For each death, the Commission of Correction took an average of nearly two and a half  years to complete its probes, THE CITY reported in July 2020.

Critics say reporting delays — and lack of public reports by CHS — have made it impossible for outsiders to identify trends while they are happening.

CHS does conduct internal reviews and flags issues identified, according to a former medical staffer.

The Legal Aid Society, the city’s largest public defender organization, said Jordan’s death is further proof of the need for a federal judge to appoint a so-called receiver to take over the Correction Department.

“Changes in leadership alone do not bring reform; DOC must make meaningful changes to its practices now, and to the standards of behavior to which it holds its staff,” said Veronica Vela, a lawyer with the Legal Aid Society’s Prisoners’ Rights Project.

The Adams administration is vehemently opposed to the appointment of a receiver, arguing that reforms are in place and taking hold.

Earlier this year, lawyers for Legal Aid and the Adams administration each submitted their case to Laura Taylor Swain, chief district judge for the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.

But she has prioritized ruling on whether the Correction Department should be held in contempt for ignoring prior court orders to enact comprehensive reforms to reduce violence.

Despite a chorus of advocates and jail experts pushing for a receiver, Swain currently has no public plans on schedule to address the larger dispute.

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