NEW YORK (1010 WINS) -- More than a dozen Department of Correction staffers will face disciplinary charges in connection with the case of Layleen Polanco, a transgender woman who died in a solitary cell on Rikers Island last year, officials said Friday.
Seventeen uniformed Department of Correction staffers will be charged for their "conduct" surrounding Polanco's death, Mayor Bill de Blasio and the department's commissioner, Cynthia Brann, said in a release Friday.
Four of those staffers — three officers and one captain — will also be suspended without pay effective immediately, the release said. The mayor's office didn't immediately release the staffers' names or respond to request for comment on the charges they would face.
"The death of Layleen Polanco was an incredibly painful moment for our city," de Blasio said in a statement. "What happened to Layleen was absolutely unacceptable and it is critical that there is accountability."
The decision to charge the staffers came three weeks after Bronx District Attorney Darcel Clark said her office would not file any criminal charges in connection with Polanco's death.
Polanco, 27, was pronounced dead inside a solitary unit on Rikers Island on June 7 last year, two months after she was arrested on misdemeanor assault charges.
The city's medical examiner said she died of an epileptic seizure. THE CITY last year reported that Department of Correction officials "knew Polanco suffered from seizures," but placed her in a solitary cell anyway.
Polanco was being held on $500 bail at the time. Activists created an emergency bail fund for transgender inmates not long after her death, and the City Council introduced a package of legislation aimed at improving the treatment of transgender and nonbinary people who are taken into custody.
Earlier this month, Clark released a statement saying her office had conducted an "in-depth," six-month-long investigation into Polanco's death and found it would "be unable to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that any individual committed any crime associated with… Polanco's demise."
"We will not be seeking any criminal charges related to this devastating event," Clark wrote at the time.
Polanco's mother filed a lawsuit against the city last August claiming Department of Correction and Correctional Health Services personnel "failed to provide her safe housing, adequate medical care and proper accommodation for her disabilities," the Daily News reported at the time.
The suit claims officers "knew that Layleen lived with epilepsy and schizophrenia, and was at heightened risk of death or serious physical harm if placed in segregation," according to the outlet.
