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Alana Casanova-Burgess: Welcome back to The Takeaway. I'm Alana Casanova-Burgess, in for Melissa Harris-Perry. Last weekend, 31-year-old Elijah Muhammad, an incarcerated inmate at New York City's Rikers Island was found dead in his cell. The New York Times reported that Muhammad appeared to have been lying dead for hours before staff discovered his body.

On Monday, New York City Department of Correction Commissioner, Louis Molina, said in a statement that, "A preliminary review of this incident required that we take immediate action against the staff involved," and an officer was terminated. It is the eighth death of an inmate at Rikers Island just this year. Last year, 16 people died while in custody there.

After public outrage about the conditions of the jail and the mounting death count, the city filed a 26-page plan to reform Rikers. Last month, a federal judge warned the city would face consequences if "it does not fulfill their commitments and demonstrate their ability to make urgently needed changes".

The judge's decision allows the city to address the situation, delaying a possible federal takeover of the jail until at least November. Just a few weeks ago, New York City Mayor, Eric Adams, visited Rikers Island, taking a tour of the facility, and commenting on the discovery and removal of weapons and other contraband. He also praised the Department of Correction officers.

Mayor Eric Adams: Instead of us lifting them up, we do just the opposite, we tear them down, over and over again. I'm here to say to the men and women of the Department of Corrections this Mayor is not going to tear you down. I acknowledge your job. I acknowledge what you do, and I'm saying thank you for what you do.

Alana Casanova-Burgess: On Thursday, Anisah Sabur, an organizer for the HALTsolitary campaign spoke outside of New York City Hall.

Anisah Sabur: These people have not even had due process. It's time to stop this practice of killing people before they're even tried.

Alana Casanova-Burgess: With me now is Matt Katz, reporter for WNYC and Gothamist. Matt, thank you so much for coming back on with us.

Matt Katz: Sure thing, a lot of thanks.

Alana Casanova-Burgess: What do we know about how Elijah Muhammad died?

Matt Katz: We know from an official who actually visited Elijah Muhammad in the days before he died that he was in a form of solitary confinement alone in a cell for more than 30 hours, and then he died of a suspected overdose. A correction officer in the aftermath of his death was fired related to the death. We don't know how that person may have been believed to be have been complicit, but that is unusual for correction officers to be fired so quickly so there must have been something that happened there.

He is the 10th person to die in New York City custody this year. Eight of them died at Rikers Island, and the deaths are suspected overdoses, suicides, and then illness that are left untreated. There are several instances of inmates just not being taken to the infirmary by officers and other inmates having to take them. One man choked on an orange and nobody helped him and he ended up dying.

Alana Casanova-Burgess: Matt, what about the city's response to this? Is it seen as adequate?

Matt Katz: No, certainly not. I mean, now there is certainly an effort by the city council. They're trying to eliminate solitary confinement. Solitary confinement, experts have been saying, for years, leads to mental distress, it can lead to suicide, and that is one piece that the city council is trying to tackle at the moment. Meanwhile, the city is under threat of a federal takeover that the jails could be taken over by the federal government. The US attorney in New York has suggested that attorneys for people who are held at Rikers Island have been seeking that for many months.

A federal judge is delaying that decision until later this year, but there is a federal monitor who has been in place at Rikers for many years now, and that person is pushing the city to make some changes. There is an action plan that the new Mayor Eric Adams administration has put into place that is intended to make conditions safer. I mean, that's really what this comes down to. Whether it's people dying because they don't get medical care, whether it's the many assaults that happen every single day both against other inmates, by inmates, and against correction officers by inmates, and then, of course, use of force by officers against inmates themselves.

There is an effort by the Adams administration to fix that they say, and they have an action plan that's been approved by the federal monitor and approved by a federal judge. Activists have been out for many years and politicians have been out for many years saying Rikers is unreformable, you can't fix the place. It's a dilapidated facility, the culture is broken, and they want to both decarcerate, they want the population at Rikers to go down, that would involve the criminal justice system as a whole to make that happen. They want the facility closed, and that's supposed to happen by 2027, but, of course, thousands of people are going to continue to be held in this dilapidated dangerous place for the next five years.

Alana Casanova-Burgess: You mentioned that the officer in this case had been terminated and that that was unusual. Can you say more about that that that isn't usually the case?

Matt Katz: Yes. There's been a lot of criticism of the Department through the years that officers are not punished for their actions and that there are suspensions, but they don't necessarily lead to firings. This individual appears to have died from an overdose. It's unclear how the drugs would have gotten into the jail. The correction commissioner told me that the drugs get in through the mail, but there was a time during the pandemic when there was no mail, no visitors, so no other way to get contraband into the facility other than through the people who work there, and there were still many overdoses during that time, which indicates that correction officers do smuggle contraband in and then sell it to inmates, and there have been criminal cases filed against correction officers for such actions.

There's a sense that the correction officers are not managed appropriately by city officials. There was a time last year when thousands of correction officers were out sick. That has decreased somewhat, but there's still a substantial percentage of the staff that calls out sick every day. Correction officers have a very powerful union, they have unlimited sick time, and there has been criticism against them for abusing that sick time.

If there's rules that the city puts into place that they don't like, that the correction officers could just not show up to work. The criticism has been that there's not enough enforcement of rules to make sure people aren't abusing sick time. The correction commissioner says he is working on that, and he's trying to make sure that everybody who says they're out sick is actually out sick.

Alana Casanova-Burgess: I know that you'll be watching out for that as well. We'll have to leave it there. Matt Katz is a reporter for WNYC and Gothamist. Matt, thank you so so much.

Matt Katz: Thanks a lot, Alana.

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