NEW YORK (1010 WINS) — The family of the latest inmate to die in the city's troubled jail system — the 17th death in custody this year — has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the Correction Department.
Erick Tavira died of an apparent suicide around 2:15 a.m. Saturday in a mental observation unit at the George R. Vierno Center on Rikers Island.
DOC Commissioner Louis Molina said in a statement that the department is taking "the health and safety of everyone in our custody seriously, and we are conducting a preliminary investigation into this death."
However, the 28-year-old's family attorney, M.K. Kaishian, told the Daily News that "according to DOC's own version of events he never should have been able to take his life while in a mental observation unit."
"Erick was the glue and the light that brought our family together, and he has been stolen from us," the family said in a statement to the paper. "His huge heart was like a magnet to those around him."
Tavira was arrested for assaulting a police officer as he entered Metropolitan Hospital to receive care for his mental condition, Kaishian told the outlet.
"He was actively seeking mental health care at the time and he was criminalized for it and now he's dead," Kaishian said.
The 28-year-old was freed on supervised release and then arrested again on June 13, 2021, for a misdemeanor, according to the report.
Tavira, who was living at a homeless shelter on Randalls Island at the time, was accused of attacking a 14-year-old boy without provocation in Washington Heights.
Facing assault and strangulation charges, he was ordered held on a $20,000 bond because of the previous charge of assaulting the officer, sending him to Rikers.
He was reportedly optimistic on the phone with his family during the 16 months he was locked up before his death, reminding his relatives to put money in his commissary account up until the week he died.
Kaishian said the family knew he wasn't getting the treatment he needed while there.
"He was always checking in on us and putting our needs first," they said. "He eagerly looked forward to reuniting with us as a free person."
The Daily News reported a rally in his memory and for the 32 other people who have died in the city's jails since Jan. 1, 2021, is scheduled for Tuesday at City Hall.
"The Department of Correction has been on notice that the conditions in its jails are deplorable and deadly but has, at best, repeatedly refused to protect the people in its custody or meet their most basic needs," the family said. "Meanwhile, others in power knowingly and continually send New Yorkers to DOC's jails, places from which many, like our beloved Erick, will never come home alive."
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