NYC NOW - August 28, 2024: Evening Roundup

Episode Date: August 28, 2024

The MTA and NYPD are planning to send a surge of officers onto bus routes as part of a new fare evasion crackdown. Meanwhile, repairs are still underway after the Coney Island Cyclone was shut down a week ago due to mechanical issues. Plus, a new report shows that detainees at Rikers Island aren’t getting prompt medical care. WNYC’s Matt Katz has more. Finally, WNYC teams up with the nonprofit Street Lab to highlight stories from neighborhoods across New York City. This week, we set up shop at Brooklyn Black Utopia, an event at the Flatbush African Burial Ground.

Welcome to NYC now, your source for local news in and around New York City from WNYC. I'm Sean Carlson. The MTA and NYPD are planning to send a surge of officers onto bus routes as part of a new fare evasion crackdown. WNYC's Ramsey-C-C-C-Cli-A reports on the renewed effort to get riders to pay. Top officials at the Police Department and Transit Agency held a meeting yesterday to identify which bus routes have the most, quote, egregious rates of fare evasion. They say they'll deploy unaractors. MTA guards onto those routes, who will look out for people who declined to pay, and then escort

those riders off the bus at stops where NYPD officers will be waiting. The MTA and NYPD launched a similar initiative last year, but fare evasion has only grown since then. Now the MTA says nearly half of bus riders don't pay the fare, which costs the agency hundreds of millions of dollars this year. Officials say they're being more strategic in their crackdown this time around. Repairs are still underway after the Coney Island Cyclone was shut down. last week. The famous roller coaster is almost 100 years old. It has a history of occasional

mechanical issues. But diehard fans of the coaster like Angie Pontani says the occasional mechanical hiccup is just part of the ride's reputation. She's even been stuck on it herself. Of course I got scared for a moment, but I was in a cyclone, right? So I had to kind of be a team leader. So I just smiled and did it. And it was kind of fun. And now it's an amazing adventure story. The cyclone remained shut down. Inspectors found a failed weld on a gear in its drive shaft, and it will need to pass a buildings department inspection before it can run again. Up next, a new report shows that detainees at Rikers Island are not getting prompt medical care. We'll have that story and more after the break.

A new watchdog report says that detainees at Rikers Island are not getting prompt medical care. The Board of Correction analysis comes in the wake of the death of the fifth detainee at Rikers so far this year. My colleague, Jenae, P, caught up with WNYC reporter Matt Katz for the latest. So problems with medical care have been alleged for years at Rikers, right? Yeah. What does this new report show? So the Board of Correction, that's the oversight agency tasked with watchdogging, the city jails, they found that last year more than a third of detainees' requests for medical care went unfulfilled.

And it found that for those who were taken to the infirmary, the appointment occurred more than 24 hours after the initial request, which violates very specific city rules. So let me say also up front that the Department of Correction and Correctional Health Services, which runs health care at the jails, they disputed the findings. They said the methodology that was used was wrong. But the larger allegation here about a failure to provide adequate medical care for detainees is in line. It's definitely consistent with a problem that's been documented in several different ways at Rikers for years now. Matt, why wouldn't a detainee be able to go to a medical appointment after falling sick or requesting medication?

What's the issue there? One is that there does seem to be a problem with a lack of technology when it comes to scheduling appointments. It's a complicated process. A lot of people there are changing population. And that's why the Board of Correction recommended that the city start documenting medical requests electronically and also electronically document why a request for medical care might not be fulfilled. Jail officials also have long said that detainees often just refuse to go to their medical appointments. The city's numbers from June show that more than 6,000 appointments, most of those that were scheduled were just skipped because of the so-called detainee refusals.

Now, defense attorneys have long said that that's absurd, that there just aren't correction officers available or willing to escort detainees from a housing area to the medical clinic. That can be a time extensive trip in the labyrinth-like jails of Rikers, or sometimes the detainees aren't even told that their appointments have been scheduled. That's the response to that from defense lawyers. Okay. As I mentioned, just last week, there was a death at Rikers Island. What do we know about what happened? Did that have anything to do with the lack of medical care? A 63-year-old detainee, Anthony Jordan.

He died at Mount Sinai Hospital after being jailed at a Rikers Island facility. that holds sick and disabled detainees. And the new site, the city, reported that he died after being sent back to his housing unit following a visit with a medical professional. Jordan was the fifth person, as you mentioned, to die in city custody this year. And I will note that given that number, the rate of death at Rikers has improved over the last year or so compared to a peak in what really became a crisis in deaths in 2022 when 19 people died. Yeah. You know, deaths, poor medical care and some other humanitarian issues. You know, all of this is why the city has pledged to finally close Rikers Island.

So, Matt, before we let you go, can you give us an update on the status of the closure? Well, the law says it has to be shut down exactly three years from now. But in reality, the construction to replace Rikers with four jails and four boroughs, which now costs upwards of $15 billion, it's just not moving fast enough for. these new replacement jails to be ready in time. The process is underway, but none of the gals are currently scheduled to be ready to take detainees by the summer of 2027. And not only that, the population of Rikers has gone up by about 1,000 people since Mayor Adams came to office. And the plan, as it's currently constituted, simply doesn't have enough, it doesn't include enough beds in the new jails to house everyone that the city is currently incarcerating. So the jailed

population now exceeds capacity in the new places by two or three thousand people. And then adding to the complication is we don't even know who's going to be running the jails in three years. A federal judge this fall is considering legal efforts to have a federal official appointed to run operations of the jail to take control away from the mayor because of the years of violence there and other humanitarian issues. So right now there's just a lot of question marks about how and when conditions at Rikers will begin to improve. and then who will be responsible ultimately for improving them? That's WNYC reporter Matt Katz speaking with my colleague, Jenei Pierre.

WNYC's Community Partnerships Desk regularly teams up with the nonprofit street lab to highlight stories from neighborhoods across New York City. We recently set up shop at Brooklyn Black Utopia, an event at the Flatbush African Burial Ground, designed to reclaim black spaces and honor ancestors across the black diaspora. My name is Chenet Lee. I'm the daughter of Joy Chattel and William Curtis Lee. I currently live in East Flatbush when I'm here at the Brooklyn Black Utopia,

just really enjoying the vibes at the Flatbush African burial ground. Right now I feel at peace and I feel appreciative of life. What brought me to a place of peace is knowing, and understanding that my mom lives within me. She's an ancestor now. So being on the burial ground, you know, it's that connection. She has a home on 2-27 abolitionist place. And in 2004, she received a notice on her door

that she was being evicted due to eminent domain. She fought that notice. And she managed to save her home and six other homes that were all part of the underground rail. So I just always want to bring recognition to my mom because these are things that she overcame. I respect her and she's my hero because of how resilient she was and how she just stood strong in her convictions. My name is in Coneylow, Epo. I reside here in Midwood, Brooklyn.

and I've been living there since 1990. I'm born and raised in Nigeria. I came here in the age of 19, but my daughter is born and raised here. My daughter invited me to the place where she and the people of like mine have organized this gathering today to honor the burial ground. of black ancestors. Her name is the former Ebel.

When she was in high school, she was dancing and teaching other children, African dance. The school gave her a room called Africa Room. Most of the clothes in my house left and went to the Africa Room. Isn't that something? But I don't mind, hey, then her enjoy herself and she's enjoying, like she is doing now.

My name is Gorgiallo and I'm here since 2000. I live in Harlem with the African community. I love very well there. I'm origin from Senegal and Gambia and Mali. I'm an artist. I teach dance, culture, drumming. All people want to know about West Africa. Oh, the art means a lot for me because I grow,

I grew with that. I studied African dance and I become professional. And now dream come through. I'm in America. I cross the ocean from Africa to America and I'm here teaching people who don't really know about Africa, who like the drumming and the dance. So that's something we really want to share with everybody.

It's so rich and welcome everybody to Africa. My name is Adrian Luke Sinclair. I'm 54. I'm originally from East Flatbush, Flatbush area. So it's really awesome that I'm like a couple blocks from where I grew up. I have a background in martial arts. And I do feel that it's important to have that aspect in your life, the ability to defend yourself.

My sense of fulfillment is being able to teach in my community to people who look like myself. I'm Afro-Caribbean. This is a predominantly Caribbean, Afro-American neighborhood. All of those Latino, Hispanic, African-American, Jamaican, Guyanese, I feel like that kind of don't look to the martial arts and self-defense is something that's for them. I think it's important to introduce them to that. I started it when my son was born. My son is 27 now. So, hey, 27 years ago.

And, you know, my goal was to teach him. He wasn't really interested, but I kept on going. You know, I had taught my daughter and people around me. So it's really cool for me to find people in my community that I can empower with that skill set. A collection of voices from an event at the Flatbush African Burial Ground. It's part of our ongoing collaboration with the nonprofit street lab to capture stories from neighborhoods across New York City. Thanks for listening to NYC now from WNWFRA. My C. Catch us every weekday three times a day. I'm Sean Carlson. We'll be back tomorrow.