We can’t just open Rikers gate: DeB

Mayor de Blasio rebuffed demands by city Democratic Congress members, including Rep. Alexandria OcasioCortez, for an instant release of all Rikers Island detainees due to increasingly dangerous conditions at the jail.

“That’s not going to happen,” de Blasio said Wednesday during his daily press briefing, held remotely from Queens Borough Hall. “I respect the Congress member and her colleagues who signed that letter, [but] couldn’t disagree with them more,” he added. “It’s not the right way to handle things.”

On Tuesday, AOC and Reps. Jamaal Bowman, Nydia Velazquez and Jerrold Nadler sent a letter to de Blasio and Gov. Hochul requesting that inmates be released.

“We strongly believe that those who are detained at Rikers should be immediately released and the facility shut down,” reads their letter. “It has become evident that conditions at Rikers . . . are deplorable and nothing short of a humanitarian crisis.”

To The Post, De Blasio touted his plan to close Rikers by 2027 and replace it with one smaller facility in each borough except for Staten Island, while categorically dismissing the immediate-release proposal.

“The answer is not to just open the gates,” he said. “Releasing everyone there . . . doesn’t make sense.”

Recent deaths and fed-up, absent guards have prompted local elected officials to tour the jail facilities and call for reforms to improve conditions there.

In response to the escalating crisis, de Blasio has announced measures to punish AWOL correction officers, supplement the Rikers staff with private security guards and use NYPD officers to escort prisoners to and from court — freeing COs to stay at Rikers.