Tiff over jails escalates
Commish digs in on restricting watchdog’s access to videos
The executive director of the city Board of Correction has resigned amid accusations the 70-year-old agency is trying to portray the Department of Correction “in a negative light,” according to sources and records.
Amanda Masters stepped down from the post on Thursday, 11 months after she was appointed. Neither Masters nor board officials responded to requests for comment.
Her resignation came weeks after the Correction Commissioner Louis Molina cut off the Board of Correction’s access to security video that the board deemed essential to its work overseeing the department.
Masters noted on her LinkedIn page that she increased the Board of Correction staff to 31 and successfully advocated for the removal of “cages” in jail day rooms, the expanded use of Narcan by officers and the use of de-escalation areas following fights.
During Masters’ tenure, the board issued three reports on deaths in the jails which exhaustively detailed Correction Department staff breakdowns that may have contributed to some of the deaths. A fourth death report is pending.
The reports were critical of DOC management.
The Daily News reported Jan. 30 that the Adams administration appeared to be attempting to tighten the control of information about the jails in a number of ways, including cutting off the video access, backing a move to keep a federal monitor’s report secret, allegedly not responding to a request by a committee in Congress for information, and shrugging off data requests by the City Council.
The video controversy began in November when NY1 filed a public records request seeking video related to the suicide of detainee Erick Tavira in September. The board consulted the state Commission on Open Government and the city Law Department and redacted portions of the video, and then sent it to the news organization, records obtained by The News show.
NY1’s request got back to the Correction Department, triggering Molina’s decision Jan. 10 to cut off BOC’s remote access to video — a key tool used by the board in assembling the death reports. He also cut off the board’s access to body camera and handheld video.
Molina decreed that board investigators had to come to DOC headquarters to view video between 9 a.m. and 6 p.m. on weekdays, and could not print out images or take documentation with them, records show.
The NY1 story report aired Jan. 12. BOC Chair Dwayne Sampson just days after he was appointed wrote two letters, dated Jan. 11 and Jan. 12 and obtained by the Daily News, asking Molina to lift his “unacceptable” directive and describing video access as “critical to the board’s ability to perform its oversight function.” The board also put out a public statement decrying the move.
The new rules, Sampson wrote, were “not a workable option.” They were also a violation of the city charter, which states the board can access DOC records at will, he wrote.
On Jan. 13, Molina fired off his reply to Sampson — a letter also obtained by The News — accusing the board of pursuing an “agenda” to “portray DOC in a negative light.” He claimed someone on the board told the NY1 reporter what to ask for and called the release of the video, “deeply disturbing.”
He also complained about another instance in which BOC released public records of images taken in the jails and presented to the Manhattan District Attorney’s office.
“I have read the city charter and nowhere do I find the authority for BOC to do roadshows to present DOC in the worse [sic] possible light,” Molina wrote.
“BOC staff seem to have an agenda that gives me no confidence that unfettered access to video is warranted.”
Before Masters’ resignation, City Councilwoman Carlina Rivera issued a blistering statement to The News this week saying Molina was “actively undermining” the agency.
Rivera (D-Manhattan) urged Molina to retract the video ban, and accused him in a statement given to The News of “attacking the free press” and eroding public trust.
“Despite a year of verbal guarantees for progress, the Commissioner’s actions show an utter disrespect and contempt for not only the BOC’s charter-mandated oversight — which explicitly includes the right to unfettered access to video footage — but compliance with New York’s Freedom of Information Laws, and the basic transparency owed to taxpayers that fund an agency with one of the largest budgets in the City,” she said.
“It is in the interest of all New Yorkers for all stakeholders involved to operate according to the City Charter in pursuit of safe, humane and just conditions at city jails.”
Masters previously worked as the board’s legal counsel for five years, was deputy executive director from 2012 to 2015 and was acting executive director for several months in 2014.
She also worked for then-Public Advocate Letitia James.