New York Post

JUVIE BAILBIRDS

Wild jail teens could get free ‘RFK’ pass

- By TINA MOORE and MAX JAEGER

The out-of-control teenage inmates who have transforme­d the city’s new juvenile detention center into the Wild West are the same 16and 17-year-olds that the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights foundation wants to set loose on city streets, a high-ranking police source says.

“Those kids in the new Horizon jail are the ones they’re looking to bail out,” the source told The Post of the Bronx lockup.

Dozens of officers have been hurt and “at least a couple have been slashed,” the source added.

“If they’re going to do that in there, they’re going to do the same thing when they get out.”

The city moved about 90 teenage inmates off Rikers and into the Horizon Juvenile Center when the state’s new Raise the Age law took effect on Oct. 1. The law bars prosecutor­s from automatica­lly charging 16-year-olds as adults and is set to extend to 17-year-olds next year.

One such Horizon jailbird that RFK Jr. wants to spring, according to sources, is 17-year-old Jayqan Coleman, who is accused of assault, robbery and sex abuse, ac- cording to court records.

On Jan. 19, Coleman slashed someone on the neck and torso before stealing $88 from their jacket pocket — then he “attempted to engage in anal sexual conduct” with his victim, according to an indictment filed in Manhattan Criminal Court.

He also has four prior arrests — including one for robbery in September 2013, when he was either 12 or 13, according to sources.

Indeed, “most” of the 90 teens being held at Horizon are in for nonfatal shootings, assaults and robberies, according to the high- ranking police source.

Since the teens were moved there on Oct. 1, there has been a violent incident nearly every day — leading to the injury of 40 correction officers since last week, said Correction Officers’ Benevolent Associatio­n head Elias Husamudeen.

“It would be great if the Kennedy Foundation showed the same concern for the victims of these assaults as they do for the criminals who are there on attempted murder, rape, assault, gun and drug charges,” he fumed.

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