TALES FROM THE (FREEZING) CRYPT
Judge finds B’klyn jail a torture chamber for inmates
One inmate at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn had water dripping into his moldy cell.
Another said he’d had to take a noose out of his suicidal cellmate’s hand.
A third said he had a “bloody rash.”
And a fourth inmate wearing weeks-old bandages said jail staff had ignored his urgent need for treatment of his glaucoma.
“I may have a retina detachment and not know it right now,” the inmate said.
A court transcript from Judge Analisa Torres’ tour of MDC Tuesday hints at the surreal hellscape inside the 1,654-bed jail on the Brooklyn waterfront. The transcript was filed in Manhattan Federal Court as part of a hearing on jail conditions that concluded after Torres’ visit.
Accompanied by public defenders, government lawyers, state Attorney General Letitia James and others, the judge visited two floors of the institution where weeks of heat and electrical problems became a crisis when an electrical fire on Jan. 27 caused a power outage. Inmates were left shivering in dark cells on lockdown until Sunday, according to testimony.
The outages sparked a weekend of protests from concerned family members and politicians outside the Sunset Park facility.
Warden Herman Quay — who was accused of lying to downplay conditions in the jail — was also on the tour but barely said anything, according to the transcript.
The judge’s first stop was in the special housing unit, which one MDC official referred to as a “jail within a jail.” She peered into cell 114, standing under a vent that was blowing cold air.
“So just looking in the window, this very narrow window, I can see abundant water damage. Toward the back is a rectangular shaped cell. On the ceiling you can see copious amounts of paint peeling and hanging from the ceiling. The ceiling is painted white, but the water-damaged area has a kind of golden tone to it. It almost looks like wet tissues hanging from the ceiling,” Torres said.
“There is water dripping. You can see it, abundant. It is as plain as day,” she said.
A few cells down, an inmate told the judge he’d tried to tell correction officers his cellmate was suicidal and they ignored him.
“I physically had to take the — literally had to take the noose out of his cellmate’s hand he was trying to kill himself,” Torres said, again relaying the inmate’s words through a cell door.
“Thank you for being worried about us, ma’am, and treating us like human beings,” the inmate said.
“I’m very worried about you,” the judge replied.
Nearby, Torres noted a cell with “black, blotchy mold.” An inmate there said he had a rash on his left arm due to water dripping on it.
In Unit 61, which witnesses said was one of the coldest units in the jail, an inmate approached the judge with bandages he said hadn’t been changed in over three weeks.
The day after Torres’ visit, a group of defense attorneys demanded a similar MDC tour. The lawyers — affiliated with the Legal Aid Society, Brooklyn Defender Services and the Bronx Defenders, among other groups — sent the jail a letter Wednesday requesting access to the housing units, medical facilities and mess hall.