NEW YORK — A Department of Correction officer was fired Monday after a Rikers Island inmate died of a suspected overdose.
Inmate Elijah Muhammad was found unresponsive inside the island’s George R. Vierno Center about 9:45 p.m. Sunday. He died at the jail, making him the 10th detainee to die in city custody this year.
It’s believed Muhammad, a native of Kentucky, had overdosed, possibly on fentanyl, sources with knowledge of the case said.
“It’s just really sad that DOC can’t keep people alive,” Anisah Sabur of the #HALTsolitary Campaign said Monday. “This gentleman died in a cage on a holy day as a Muslim.”
A DOC spokeswoman said the cause of Muhammad’s death was still under investigation. The city’s Medical Examiner’s Office will be conducting an autopsy.
Jails Commissioner Louis Molina said a review of Muhammad’s death “required that we take immediate action” against some staff.
“An officer was terminated,” Molina said. “We will also be referring this incident to the Department of Investigation immediately.”
The DOC did not disclose what the officer did to warrant his firing.
Two inmates died on Rikers Island in June, putting the city’s total in-custody death toll this year at eight — two more than at the same point in 2021.
But, as first reported by the Daily News, a ninth inmate died at a hospital on June 15, eight days after hanging himself in a Bronx holding cell. The Correction Department does not count his death as in custody because he was granted “compassionate release” on his deathbed. The News is including that death in the growing tally of dead inmates.
Muhammad, 31, was arrested for allegedly swiping six hats from a retailer on Graham Avenue near the Broadway Triangle in Brooklyn on June 6. When he was seen in the area two days later, the merchant flagged down police officers, claiming that Muhammad, who has an extensive criminal history, had a machete.
He’s accused of slugging the merchant in front of police, then fighting off cops trying to arrest him. He was charged with assault in the first degree.
“Rikers is a death trap,” Sabur continued. “We need to stop sending people to die there. It’s only July and we’ve already lost 10 lives this year. We cannot answer violence in communities with pre-trial death sentences.”
———
