BATTLE OF THE BAN AT CITY HALL
Shouting match pits correx officers vs. supporters of end to solitary confinement
Correction officers argued Wednesday with supporters of a City Council bill to end solitary confinement in city jails in competing rallies on the City Hall steps.
“We live in the City of New York with a bunch of left-wing liberals who think that it’s OK for correction officers to be assaulted, and inmates to be rewarded,” said Correction Captains’ Association President Patrick Ferraiuolo, who slammed journalists and “woke” liberals he says mischaracterize the troubles at Rikers Island. Ferraiuolo spoke at a scheduled rally by correction officers that ran to 10:30 a.m., a half hour longer than planned.
When supporters of a bill to ban solitary confinement at Rikers and other city lockups tried to take their turn on the City Hall steps, the correction officers stuck around and tried to drown them out by chanting, “Save jails now!”
“C-O-B-A, how many people have you killed today?” supporters of the solitary confinement ban chanted in response. COBA is the Correction Officers’ Benevolent Association.
Mayor Adams — who has linked arms with the correction unions in vehemently opposing the solitary confinement ban — was in Washington on Wednesday and missed the fireworks.
Despite the mayor’s opposition, the bill is likely to become law, as it has 36 Council sponsors — a veto-proof majority — including Speaker Adrienne Adams (D-Queens).
City Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, who wrote the bill, said solitary confinement is torture. “There has to be a way to keep people safe, but that cannot be based in torture. That is all that this bill is saying,” he said at the rally.
Correction officers yelled that Williams was a “hypocrite” and told him, “You only care about the criminals!”
City Hall security officials and NYPD officers onsite did not try to disperse the Correction Officers’ Benevolent Association members who interrupted the anti-solitary confinement rally. “It’s unfortunate. We’re trying to accommodate both sides,” a detective said.
A City Hall staffer could not remember the last time cops didn’t move in to disperse groups at odds on a given issue.
“This s--t doesn’t happen unless you let it happen,” the source said, adding that it’s “totally out of protocol” to let dueling protests “devolve into conflict.”