$90K for Rikers machine guns
On the heels of spending $100,000 to buy sniper rifles for guards at Rikers Island last year, the under-fire city Department of Correction is beefing up its arsenal again, plunking down more than $90,000 in submachine guns for the troubled lockup.
DOC officials, who agreed this year to shell out more than $53 million to settle class-action lawsuits over inmate abuse complaints, put in a purchase order last week for 30 Heckler & Koch MP5 machine guns, according to the city record.
The department said Tuesday the weapons would only be used in “extraordinary” and “high-risk situations” by a specially trained team.
“The Department of Correction is a law enforcement agency,” a DOC spokesperson said. “Our members of service are also first responders who deploy when needed to critical incidents as needed to department facilities both on and off Rikers Island.”
New Jersey gun dealer
The purchase order shows the department is spending $91,171.50 to buy the firearms from Thomas J. Morris III/Eagle Point Gun in Thorofare, a licensed New Jersey gun dealer that contracts with the city.
It comes after the department, which had a budget of more than $1 billion in fiscal year 2022, spent nearly $100,000 in September to buy 10 long-range M-10 sniper rifles amid criticism over security at the jail, The Post reported the following month. That move raised eyebrows among some experts who wondered why a jail complex with a largely custodial mission would need the weapons.
“It’s not like anybody will be storming Rikers Island and if they did, I’m pretty sure they have enough ammunition to combat that,” one law-enforcement source told The Post at the time.
But Keith Taylor, a 23-year veteran of the NYPD Emergency Service Unit and a former DOC assistant correction commissioner, said the MP5s are a vital part of the jail’s arsenal.
“The MP5 is not for in-house stuff,” explained Taylor, who is now an adjunct professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in Manhattan.
“If they are doing tactical security operations such as escorting high-valued target prisoners to and from court proceedings, they have to have a plan in place that would include having the use of sufficient weaponry to deal with any kind of threats that they may need,” he said.
The DOC has its own specialized Emergency Service Unit that goes through the same tactical and weapons training as the NYPD’s counterpart.
“They can’t rely on the NYPD to handle all their security issues, so they have to have that capability themselves,” Taylor said. “This is not something where they just decided one day to create the unit.
This is due to threats and incidents that they dealt with in the past, and they realized they had the need.”
Word of the gun purchase comes as correction officials continue to come under fire in recent years amid complaints over harsh conditions at the lockup and failure to report inmate deaths.
Late last month, the DOC sparked more backlash when it announced that it will no longer announce when an inmate dies behind bars.
Under fed monitor
The change in policy came after DOC officials reportedly tried to quell a federal monitor’s report about five disturbing incidents behind bars over a six-day period in May. The monitor was installed in 2015 to address claims that guards regularly used unnecessary force.
City Hall agreed in April to shell out more than $53 million to settle class-action claims that some inmates were mistreated, confined in tight spaces and deprived of sunlight while behind bars.
The settlement, the culmination of a lawsuit brought by a dozen men who claimed they were beaten by Rikers correction officers, also instituted a number of other reforms, such as strict rules against guards striking inmates on the head, a body camera mandate and the installation of 8,000 security cameras throughout the complex.