By Graham Rayman at the Daily News
March 20th, 2025
A woman held on Rikers Island died by possible suicide early Thursday, according to correction officials and sources.
The death, an apparent suicide according to sources, took place in West Facility and is the fourth fatality connected to New York City jails since Feb. 19. It comes amid growing concern as the city’s jail population has crested over 7,000.
Sarena Townsend, a lawyer and former deputy commissioner for trials and investigations, called the spate of deaths “startling.”
“We’ve seen spikes like this in the past when leaders have either lost focus or placed the wrong people into management positions,” she said. “Here, I think the spike is related to the increase in population and the staff’s inability to manage all of the detainees. Gang activity and drug use is still rampant on the Island so the chaos on the island has not abated.
Without proper accountability, and without managers who can handle the increase in population, deaths and constitutional violations are bound to happen.”
Correction officials said the woman, who has yet to be identified, was declared dead at 5:23 a.m. They did not confirm the cause of death. Staff handing out breakfast did not receive a response from her at about 4:47 a.m. and tried to revive her with a medical team but were unsuccessful.
The case, which marks the second death in five days connected to NYC jails, is under investigation. On Saturday, Ariel Quidone, 20, who had been detained at Rikers for about a week, died in Elmhurst Hospital after being taken there Thursday.
Ramel Powell died Feb. 19 in the Otis Bantum Correctional Center and Terence Moore died Feb. 24 in a holding cell in the Manhattan courthouse.
Melanie Dominguez, organizing director for the Katal Center for Equity, Health, and Justice, said:
“The crisis is hitting a tipping point this month with four deaths on Rikers. Instead of working to save lives, Adams is hellbent on sending more Black, brown, and low-income New Yorkers to Rikers, and now the jail population is over 7000 for the first time since 2019. This is unacceptable.”
