4 deaths at Rikers all ‘natural,’ says Adams pick on Correx Board

Mayor Adams’ new appointee to the city Board of Correction raised eyebrows Tuesday when he dismissed four deaths of Rikers Island inmates this year as merely “natural.”

Joseph Ramos, a retired correction official recently appointed to the jail watchdog, made the remarks in a board meeting a day after the Correction Board issued a report revealing in disturbing detail that a cascade of systemic problems contributed to the deaths of detainees Tarz Youngblood on Feb. 27, George Pagan on March 17 and Herman Diaz on March 18.

“I personally feel they were natural deaths in this last three months,” Ramos said, adding inaccurately, “but there was no negative publicity about the 16 suicides that were committed last year.”

In fact, five of the total 16 inmate deaths in 2021 were suicides by hanging and the rest were overdoses, natural causes or not yet determined, the city medical examiner’s office said.

Ramos’ remarks brought a swift response from fellow board member Dr. Robert Cohen.

“These were not natural deaths,” Cohen said. “They took place in housing areas which did not have any officers present. There were great failures in getting emergency care to people. Critical evaluations of sick people did not occur because staff were not available.”

As the Daily News previously reported, there was no floor officer making the rounds when the profoundly ill Pagan went into medical distress, or when Diaz choked to death on an orange.

A correction officer also didn’t conduct required rounds on the day of Youngblood’s death, contributing to a delay in getting him help, the board found.

On Saturday, a fourth detainee, Dashawn Carter, hanged himself in Rikers. He had spent seven months in a psychiatric facility and was in the city jails for just two days before he took his life.

Nevertheless, Ramos blamed The News’ coverage for the Correction Department’s dysfunction.

“The Department of Correction is going to have a hard time recruiting new officers because of the negative publicity that the Daily News and all of those papers that are anti-uniform are putting out in the community,” declared Ramos.

The three-hour board meeting featured Correction Commissioner Louis Molina pledging to have a new system, the Risk Management Accountability System, which is replacing solitary confinement, partially in place by July 1.