A transgender lady who died locked up at Rikers Island became as soon as left unchecked by correction officers for a roughly 45-minute stretch — despite penal advanced policies that acknowledged she desired to be checked every 15 minutes, new surveillance video launched by her family and viewed by BuzzFeed News shows.
The video is basically the most up-to-date portion of proof in the loss of life of Layleen Xtravaganza Cubilette-Polanco, 27, who suffered an epileptic seizure in the notorious New York Metropolis penal advanced in June 2019. It comes because the nation is reckoning with systemic racism in how regulation enforcement officers — along side police and penal advanced guards — take care of Dim, LGBTQ, Latinx, and of us of coloration.
Polanco became as soon as being held at Rikers on $501 bail for an assault and prostitution fee, both misdemeanors.
The video, first reported by NBC News, is from surveillance photos one day of the penal advanced. It shows correction officers mechanically checking on Polanco in her “punitive segregation” — really solitary confinement — cell on June 7, 2019 up till 1: 42 p.m.
Then, there’s a 47-minute gap till an officer assessments on Polanco at 2: 27 p.m. At 2: 45 p.m., two correction officers, apparently seeing something became as soon as pass, open Polanco’s cell, delivery calling in to her. Then they both laugh for an unknown reason.
“It became as soon as horrifying for the family to peek this photos,” David Shanies, a licensed skilled representing Polanco’s family in a federal civil rights lawsuit in opposition to the city and Division of Correction employees. “They were totally unprepared for what they saw. They all broke into hysterical crying, understandably. And to in the intervening time, Layleen’s mother is worried by the photographs of the guard laughing at her daughter.”
Shanies known as the officers’ laughter “unfathomable, and it’s genuinely shiny a symbol of the total disregard the total machine had for Layleen.”
The New York Metropolis Anti-Violence challenge, which specializes in the LGBTQ personnel, acknowledged the video revealed “neglect and humiliation” of Polanco.
The personnel is soliciting for the correction officers eager and their captain to be fired, an cease to solitary confinement in New York Metropolis jails, a repeal for “provisions with regards to loitering for the reason of enticing in a prostitution offense,” and to protect up the enlighten’s most up-to-date bail reform measures in home.
Hundreds of transgender of us are assuredly subjected to neglect and violence and stripped of their humanity interior our nation’s jails and prisons. These acts of enlighten violence desire to prevent,” acknowledged govt director Beverly Tillery.
Earlier this month, Bronx District Attorney Darcel Clark acknowledged that after a six month investigation she would no longer file any prison expenses. “We’ve concluded that we would be unable to point to beyond an cheap doubt that any particular particular person committed any crime associated with Ms. Polanco’s demise,” she acknowledged. The correction officers face ability administrative action.
Clark’s home of job compiled an huge 24-net page checklist on Polanco’s loss of life.
When Polanco became as soon as dropped at Rikers, she “made DOC aware that she suffered from a seizure dysfunction,” the checklist acknowledged. “Polanco suffered at least two documented, considered seizures at some stage in her time on Rikers Island.”
The checklist acknowledged Polanco became as soon as placed in isolation for 20 days after allegedly assaulting every other inmate and entering into a scuffle with a correction officer. On Would perchance well moreover 30, 2019, a doctor acknowledged she became as soon as medically fit to be placed in isolation.
The day she died, at 12: 50 p.m., a corrections officer “made her rounds again and regarded into Ms. Polanco’s cell. When she glanced into the cell, she saw Ms. Polanco, who she believed to be asleep, below the blankets, along with her head towards the wall closest to her face,” per the checklist.
At 1: 40, officers regarded into her cell to peek if she wished to creep to personnel treatment and reported seeing her in roughly the the same draw. A correction officer told investigations she believed Polanco “became as soon as respiratory and that she became as soon as asleep with headphones in. The 2 Correction Officers walked away without entering the cell.”
At 2: 40 p.m., Polanco became as soon as in the the same draw. The officers “ they opened the door and started calling out for her from interior her cell,” per the checklist. “They stumbled on Ms. Polanco in the bed and grew to change into her over. They stumbled on that she became as soon as unresponsive, had vomit on her face, and became as soon as no longer respiratory.”
A correction officer first goes into the cell at 2: 48 p.m., atmosphere off a series of events that eager scientific officers arriving on the cell. Polanco became as soon as declared needless at 3: 45 p.m.
