STAY AT RIKERS, BLASIO!
Sliwa’s challenge
Republican mayoral nominee Curtis Sliwa demanded on Sunday that Mayor de Blasio “spend a week on Rikers Island” — where inmates have been running amok amid staff shortages.
The Guardian Angels founder (inset) delivered a letter — in a manila envelope with “Mayor de Blasio time to visit the ‘Rock’ ” written on it — to a security guard outside Gracie Mansion.
“He hasn’t been to Rikers in four years and refuses to go,” said Sliwa, who was locked up at the jail in the 1980s. “It’s total anarchy and chaos on Rikers Island. This mayor does not want to go there, to the Rock.”
De Blasio last toured the jail in June 2017.
In the letter, Sliwa accuses de Blasio of neglecting Rikers to make other appearances, noting that in the past two months, the mayor played volleyball at Orchard Beach, shot hoops at a Belmont basketball event, visited Staten Island’s ballpark, and dropped in on a series of hip-hop concerts held around the city.
“Your job as mayor now requires that you spend a week on Rikers Island,” Sliwa wrote. “Do your job, go to Rikers Island this week, don’t be afraid. Your NYPD armed security force will protect you.
“It’s time to make the Rock safe for correctional officers and inmates.”
The letter includes two grisly photos of two wounded correction officers, who, according to Sliwa, were recently attacked by inmates at the lockup.
On Thursday, Correction Commissioner Vincent Schiraldi said there were “serious problems” at Rikers — hours after The Post revealed video showing three inmates attacking another and inmates partying in a cell.
At least 10 people locked up at Rikers have died so far in 2021. The latest death came when Esias Johnson, 24, who was awaiting trial, was found unresponsive by a correction officer Tuesday morning.
Correction officers have recently been working triple and quadruple shifts at the jail due to lack of personnel.
To alleviate the shortage, the city’s Department of Correction said it had hired a telemarketing firm to call recent retirees and persuade them to return to work.
Rikers is slated to close by August 2027 under the mayor’s $8.7 billion plan to replace it with four smaller jails, one in each borough except Staten Island.