Inmate dressed as guard has escape try foiled

An assault suspect held in a Rikers Island jail somehow got his hands on a Correction Department uniform Thursday night and walked around pretending to conduct rounds in a possible attempt to escape, according to correction sources, officials and records.

Bokeem Jones, 28, donned the DOC uniform — including the official shirt, jackets, trousers and boots — in the Otis M. Bantum Correctional Center at some point before 10:30 p.m., the sources said.

He walked into an intake area in the stolen uniform momentarily then left as if he was touring the housing area like an officer. He then was walking down a corridor when officers “recognized” him at about 10:25 p.m., records show.

“Inmate Jones was in a DOC uniform impersonating an officer,” a report on the incident obtained by The News said.

They ordered him to stop. He refused and supposedly took a “fighting stance,” the records show. Three officers then used pepper spray to subdue him, put him in shackles, and placed him in an intake holding cell.

The incident was reported just over an hour later to DOC’s Central Operations Desk at 11:46 p.m.

The ensuing investigation kept the entire jail locked down until early Friday morning, the sources said.

How Jones obtained the uniform was unclear.

The inmate has been on Rikers since his arrest in January 2022 for first-degree assault in Brooklyn.

DOC spokesman Patrick Rocchio said the incident is under investigation.

“(He) tried to escape by disguising himself in a DOC uniform and attempting to leave a secure area,” Rocchio said. “Officers identified the detainee in a hallway and quickly took him into custody.”

The Bantum Center was closed and then was partially reopened in the past year, one of several jails that experienced closures and re-openings in the past couple of years as part of reorganizations.

“The closures and subsequent re-openings may be beneficial in the long term, but they are destabilizing in the short term,” the federal monitor wrote in a July 10 report.

The possible security breakdown comes as a new controversy has erupted that has highlights disagreements between DOC leadership and the correction unions.

Earlier this week, DOC ordered a cap on overtime for officers of all ranks, records show. Assistant deputy wardens are now capped at 42 hours a month, captains at 47 hours and correction officers at 57 hours, records show.

Meanwhile, there have been three jail deaths this month for a total of seven in 2023, the most recent being that of Curtis Davis who died early Sunday.