NEW YORK (1010 WINS/WCBS 880) – Inmates trapped in their cells during a fire at Rikers Island's North Infirmary Command last year are suing the city, claiming officers failed to bring them to safety as their rooms filled with smoke for nearly 30 minutes before they were evacuated.
“Our clients and all the other folks that are in custody on this day and locked in NIC were kept there being forced to inhale deadly poisonous, toxic smoke,” Joshua Lax, a federal civil trial attorney representing the incarcerated individuals trapped in their cells during the fire, told WCBS 880.
"We will review the case and respond in the litigation,” a New York City Law Department spokesperson told WCBS 880.
An investigation last year by the Board of Correction, responsible for protecting the rights of incarcerated individuals, of the incident revealed a series of protocol lapses in the response to the fire.
The board identified major concerns including NIC staff shutting off the sprinkler system water supply to a housing area between April 1, 2022, and April 6, 2023, the absence of weekly and monthly fire safety audits during that period, and the failure to allow individuals out of their locked cells for over 25 minutes while fire and smoke spread across the unit.
According to the report, on April 6, 2023, Marvens Thomas, a 30-year-old inmate, allegedly started a fire inside his cell in a restrictive unit at the NIC using batteries, headphone wires, and a remote control, which he then fueled with tissues and clothing, causing it to spread to the cell’s walls and ceiling.
The smoke from the fire triggered the smoke detector at 1:15 pm, alerting DOC’s Fire Safety Unit. Between 1:16 pm and 1:40 pm, duct detectors registered smoke in cells 1 through 10. At 1:28 pm, an officer tried to extinguish the blaze with a fire extinguisher, but it was ineffective. Body-worn camera footage viewed by the board showed a correction officer attempting to put out the fire with a fire extinguisher at 1:28 pm, while a supervisor, off-camera, "gave correction officers a direct order to not open the cells." The footage also revealed the officer struggling to find the key to access the fire hose, eventually receiving assistance from a supervisor.
By 1:41 p.m., correction officers began evacuating the eight inmates from their cells, completing the evacuation by 1:46 p.m. A total of 20 people were injured, according to the report.
“For the minutes that it's burning, it's sending smoke throughout the building and that smoke is going through air vents, the airways, the, the air ventilation system, remained operable so it was just pumping smoke from the housing area in NIC where the fire started into all these other places,” Lax explained.
Lax also stressed that this isn’t an isolated case. "The legal term is 'deliberate indifference,'" highlighting how the DOC and the city have allegedly ignored fire safety issues for decades. He added, "These fires happen in the hundreds around Rikers Island. The medical staff knows what the problem is, but neither the city nor the medical staff have taken steps to establish an effective emergency medical response."
The lawsuit was filed in Manhattan federal court on Friday by 15 men who claim they were hurt by the blaze, alleging they received no medical attention despite requesting help. They are seeking damages for physical and emotional injuries caused by the fire.
“The facts are clearly there,” Lax said. “The reality is clearly there. We wanna get justice for these people. But justice in this type of case, looks like many different things.”