Vic a parole violator
1st inmate killed by virus held on technicality
The first city inmate to die from coronavirus was brought to Rikers Island for a nonviolent technical parole violation three days before he was rushed to Bellevue Hospital — and a day before hearings at the jail’s judicial center shut down because a parole officer tested positive for COVID-19, the Daily News has learned.
Michael Tyson, 53, was transferred from the floating Vernon C. Bain Center to Rikers for a March 23 hearing on the technical parole violation he was facing, according to documents obtained by The News. He was taken to the Eric M. Taylor Center the same day, a source said.
On March 24, the judicial center — where those accused of parole violations go before a judge who determines whether to free them or keep them locked up — closed after a senior parole officer contracted coronavirus, two other sources told the News.
By March 26, Tyson was taken to Bellevue, where he died Sunday. An internal Correctional Health Services email obtained by The News said Tyson had “serious underlying medical conditions.”
“Late last month, he presented with an elevated temperature and tested positive for COVID-19,” Senior Vice President for Correctional Health Services Patsy Yang wrote to staffers Sunday. “He ultimately was admitted to the Bellevue ICU and was discharged to a medical unit at Bellevue late last week. He experienced an acute episode this morning and passed away.”
Tyson was busted Feb. 28 for a technical parole violation — a nonviolent infraction that can include failing to make curfew or missing a meeting with a parole officer.
Lawyers were barred from going to the Rikers judicial center beginning March 16. But the state Corrections and Community Supervision Department — the agency with authority over state parolees — denied initial requests to suspend in-person hearings, sources said.
Lawyers, parole officers, correction officers and other personnel raised serious concerns for weeks over a steady stream of incoming parolees at the Rikers judicial center, where those accused of parole violations sit at small tables in confined rooms with little room for social distancing, sources said.
“It’s one of the places with the most staff movement because officers are constantly escorting people around,” one source said. “They had this guy in a process that was already treacherous.”
As of Monday, 286 people in city custody and 333 Correction Department staffers had tested positive for coronavirus.
The Legal Aid Society and the New York Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit Friday demanding the release of 100 people on parole warrants from city jails — including Tyson.
“This tragedy would have been entirely avoidable if only Gov. Cuomo had directed [the Corrections and Community Supervision Department] — the agency with authority over state parolees — to act decisively from the outset of this epidemic to release incarcerated New Yorkers who, like Mr. Tyson, were especially vulnerable to the virus,” said Legal Aid’s Tina Luongo.