Inmates at New York City’s Rikers Island were kept locked in their cells for nearly half an hour while a fire spread through one of the nation’s largest and most notorious jail complexes this past April, injuring some 20 people, according to a report released Friday by an independent oversight agency.
The city Board of Correction also found that the water supply for the sprinkler system serving the affected jail unit had been shut off for at least a year and that jail staff had failed to conduct the required weekly and monthly fire safety audits for at least as long.
