Rikers Island inmate dies of ‘medical emergency,’ 8th death in custody at NYC jail this year

An inmate died of a medical emergency in the bathroom of a Rikers Island facility Tuesday morning – marking the eighth reported death of an inmate at the city’s jails this year, officials said.

A correction officer found the man – whose name has not been released pending family notification – lying on the floor of a restroom inside the Eric M. Taylor Center, according to the city’s Department of Correction.

Realizing the inmate had suffered a medical emergency, the officer tended to him and called medical staff to the scene, but to no avail, officials said.

The inmate was pronounced dead just before 8:30 a.m., officials said.

“The entire Department is deeply saddened by a death in our custody,” DOC Commissioner Lynelle Maginley-Liddie said in a statement. “Our thoughts are with his loved ones. Every loss of life that occurs in our care is investigated and we will thoroughly examine what occurred in this instance.”

The latest inmate marked the eighth person to die in a city-run jail facility this year, with another dying shortly after being released.

That total already exceeds the number of inmate deaths in all of 2024 when five detainees died at the short-stay Bronx correctional complex.

Earlier this month, cancer patient Christian Collado, 51, died at Bellevue Hospital’s jail ward, where he was receiving palliative care, Gothamist reported.

The death came a day after Collado’s attorney requested that his client be released from custody because of his diagnosis, according to the outlet.

And in late June, two inmates died on the same day, officials said.

Benjamin Kelly, 37, who was discovered in medical distress, died at the Eric M. Taylor Center – and James Maldanado, 56, suffered a medical emergency while on a bus to Rikers to await a court hearing after being discharged from a hospital.

The beleaguered jail has been under the supervision of a federal monitor since 2015 because of pervasive problems.

In May, a federal judge appointed a remediation manager to overhaul the jail — which has seen its population grow to more than 7,000 from about 4,000 in 2020.