MISSING PRISONER SPURS FRENZY AT RIKERS
Cops search island, waters for inmate on loose
BEDLAM RULED on Rikers Island Wednesday when an inmate hopped a fence and slipped into the night, sparking a lockdown and massive manhunt.
The NYPD and Port Authority Police were aiding correction officers in the search that encompassed parts of Queens, as well as the waters surrounding the city’s largest jail.
Rikers staff noticed the jail’s head count was off by one at about 7:30 p.m., sources said.
As of early Thursday, the jailbird identified as Naquan Hill, 24, was still on the loose.
One law enforcement source said Hill was seen on video leaving the yard in the complex’s Anna M. Kross Center. The escape sent the islandintocontrolledchaos.
Officers were seen traversing the nearly mile-long bridge to the island, their flashlights trained on the dark water below. Helicopters circled overhead, K-9 units were deployed and harbor units swept the choppy East River currents. Port Authority cops at nearby LaGuardia Airport were alerted.
Hill was being held without bail in two 2016 Queens break-ins. The Queens resident, described by authorities and sources as 5-feet-6, and 150 pounds, with black dreadlocks and brown eyes, also served state prison time for a string of 2012 burglary convictions, public records show.
Correction Department officials did not publicly comment on the escape until three hours after Rikers staff noticed the headcount was off, nor did they release a photo of Hill.
“This evening, on Rikers Island, it appears an inmate did not return from outdoor recreation,” Correction Department spokesman Peter Thorne said in an email sent to the Daily News at 10:30 p.m.
Meanwhile, hundreds of visitors were stranded on the island for hours. They flooded out of five packed buses shortly after 10:45 p.m., several shouting “Freedom!” and complaining some were suffering asthma attacks and other medi- cal problems.
“I was stuck in that bus for three hours. No consideration. Everybody loud. Everybody was going crazy, everybody was in the bus suffocating,” said Wendy Jamie, 33, who was visiting an inmate at the Kross center when the lock down began.
FDNY medics took one person to Elhmurst Hospital Center with a noncritical injury shortly after 9:20 p.m., an FDNY spokesman said.
Adding to the confusion was an unfortunately timed tweet from City Hall.
“Our message to anyone in jail: This is the last time we ever want to see you here. By August, all NYC inmates will get education & training,” Mayor de Blasio wrote around 10 p.m. Hizzoner’s office promptly deleted the tweet.