Pol slimed at Rikers
Inmate hurls liquid at councilman touring lockup
A Rikers inmate threw a clear liquid on a Brooklyn city councilman as he toured the island on Wednesday amid the ongoing jails crisis.
Councilman Stephen Levin (D-Brooklyn) was touring a solitary housing unit in the North Infirmary Command with Department of Correction staff when Daishaughn Hodge, 21, threw the liquid about 2:15 p.m., internal Correction Department records show.
“He flung a small container of liquid — it could have been water. Most of it hit the plexiglass, but a little dripped on my hair,” Levin told the Daily News. “Staff took it very seriously and had me visit Correctional Health Services.”
Hodge was arrested April 6 in Manhattan on robbery and assault charges, and was being held on $100,000 bail.
“He didn’t say anything,” Levin said of the inmate. “It’s hard for me to project what was going through his mind. I don’t think he was agitated.”
Levin said he did not plan to press charges. A Correction Department staffer was also hit with the liquid.
It is not uncommon for inmates to hurl bodily fluids and other liquids at correction staff.
The scary splash came nine days after state legislators touring Rikers Island said they were shocked to see “a humanitarian crisis.” Two elected officials saw an inmate attempt to hang himself.
Despite the gross encounter, Levin said that compared with a previous visit, he saw improvement in the conditions in the central intake section in another jail, the Otis Bantum Correctional Center.
“While there was still some serious issues there, it looked significantly improved from a couple of weeks ago,” he said. “There was a significantly lower number of people from what I saw in my last visit. There were close to 200 in intake the last time. Yesterday, there were 40 to 50 in intake in [Otis Bantum].”
But one detainee, he said, told him he had been in intake for a week — far longer than the required 24 hours to be assigned a bed.
A handful of people, he said, had been moved to the Eric M. Taylor Center, which was reopened this week to address the crowding at the Bantum Center.
“I think that the reason why 200 people were in intake was there was a huge backlog and that was caused by staff shortages,” he said.
Levin said he supports Correction Commissioner Vincent Schiraldi and Deputy Commissioner of Operations Stanley Richards.
“Vinny and Stanley are two of the most dedicated people I know to doing the right thing across the board and they are trying as hard as they possibly can to kind of stop the inhumanity that’s at Rikers,” he said. “I can’t think of two people better placed to be this work.”