NYC NOW - Midday News: Gov. Hochul Visits Brooklyn School Amid Start of Statewide School Smartphone Ban, Brooklyn Library Hosts Fair for Older Adults, and Two Recent Deaths Add to NYPD Custody Toll

Episode Date: September 4, 2025

Governor Kathy Hochul visited a Brooklyn middle school to mark the start of New York’s new statewide smartphone ban in schools. Meanwhile, the Brooklyn Public Library will hold a free fair celebrating older adults at its Central Library with live music, vendors, and a keynote on aging. Plus, the NYPD says two men who died in custody last weekend had been arrested for low-level offenses, bringing the total to at least five deaths in custody so far this year. WNYC’s Charles Lane reports.

Welcome to NYC Now, your source for local news in and around New York City from WNYC. It's Thursday, September 4th. Here's the midday news from Veronica Del Valle. New York State's school smartphone ban is now in effect. Governor Kathy Hockel was at MS-582 in East Williamsburg to mark the start of the new policy. She told the middle schoolers the ban is for their own good. You're going to be smarter. Because you'll be paying attention more in school.

Your teachers will have a better experience teaching you and making connections with you. The statewide law requires schools to have a policy in place to keep smartphones out of students' hands from opening bell to closing bell. For some schools, that means requiring students to put their phones in lockable pouches or lockers. The ban does not apply to devices with no internet access like most flip phones. The Brooklyn Public Library is celebrating older. adults tomorrow with a special fair ahead of National Grand Parents Day this Sunday. The free event is being held at the Central Library near Grand Army Plaza from 10 in the morning to 3 in the afternoon. BPL officials say it will feature live music, more than 20 vendors and organizations,

and a keynote presentation on Aging with Grace by author Omari Cannon. The library is also recognizes Hazel Hamilton as BPL's older American of the Year. She's volunteered for more than 20 years at BPL, helping older adults and at senior centers too. 77 and sunny right now, and the humidity is dropping. Today, sunny with a high of 79, wind gusts could hit as high as 25 miles an hour. Tonight, a chance of showers and thunderstorms, 67 and windy. Stick around. There's more to come. According to the NYPD, the two men who died in police custody last weekend were arrested for low-level offenses.

Please say so far at least five people have died in NYPD custody this year. Two of them were arrested for shoplifting, one for unpaid fines, and another for drug possession. WNMIC's Charles Lane reports that this comes as the NYPD ramps up low-level arrest, and he's here to give us the details he's with us right now. Charles, let's start with what happened this weekend. Who died and how? So this weekend, two men died. Musa Settin and Christopher Nieves. Sutton was arrested for. for unpaid fines for operating an unlicensed pedicab in Midtown Manhattan. Over six separate occasions since July, police gave him tickets, and records show that he appeared in court for five of those tickets, but that a warrant was issued for the first one, which he didn't appear for.

Police said that he was arrested on Friday night and placed in a holding cell. Apparently, he was wearing a jacket, and official said that, according to the video of the cell, set and took off the jacket, wrapped it around the cell bars, and hanged himself. Officials said that he was alone in the cell for about 14 minutes. He died two days later in the hospital. I spoke to one of his friends yesterday, and they said that all of his friends were just incredulous that he might have killed himself. They described him as hardworking and happy, who was quick to break out and to dance. They said that he migrated from Turkey through Mexico in 2023. His lawyer told me that he

he was applying for asylum. So just hours after Seton was found unconscious in his cell in Manhattan, Christopher Nieves was found unresponsive in his cell in Brooklyn. Nevis was arrested for allegedly stealing food from the Whole Foods in Williamsburg. According to police, he was charged for shoplifting food on Friday and for another occasion last December. According to police, he was arrested a number of times in the past for mostly small thefts, nothing violent. I was able to talk to his sister yesterday, and she was heartbroken, not just because she lost her brother, but just the idea that anyone dying alone on the cold floor of a jail cell because they were shoplifting, she said that there's something wrong in the city when that happens.

She said that her brother did struggle with drug addiction, but that she always checked in on him. Both her and Seton's friends have a lot of questions about the circumstances around these deaths, and they're still trying to get answers from police. This was on top of three other deaths in NYPD custody this year. What do we know, Charles, about those incidents? So the three that we know about include Soso Rameshvili. He also died in the Brooklyn Courthouse in March. He died of natural causes related to a stomach ulcer, according to the medical examiner's office.

He was arrested for allegedly shoplifting from a Home Depot, and normally that's something that you would be given a ticket for, but police said that Ramishvili didn't have ID on him, so he was arrested. The second death that we know of was a man whom we never got a name for. He died in the Manhattan Criminal Courthouse. He was awaiting arraignment on drug possession. He was initially stopped in the subway for fare evasion, but when he was searched by officers, they found drugs on him and they arrested him. And the third that we know about is Sinaya Chatham. She was 18 years old and was arrested in the Bronx after getting into a fight with her girlfriend. police said that she killed herself in the cell.

According to the NYPD, four the people who died were in custody for misdemeanors. Let's talk about those types of arrests. Now, we know that you've looked at stats for misdemeanors. What have you found? These arrests have been climbing. So in the first six months of this year, police have made more than 14,000 arrests for a pedic larceny, these small thefts. And that puts the department on track to break last year's record of 20,000. 37,000 arrests. Now, to sort of put this in context, during Mayor Mike Bloomberg's tenure,

Pett at Larsonese, hovered somewhere around 10,000 a year, up or down. Then Mayor Bill de Blasio came in, and under Police Commissioner Bill Breton, they spiked up to 27,000. But then they started to gradually come down to about 21,000. But last year, they spiked again. And, you know, this year, we're on track to beat last year's all-time record. But meanwhile, companies, complaints for pedic license have fallen about 10%. So even though, you know, the arrest are going up, the actual complaints are going down, though they are still higher now compared to before the pandemic. Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch has talked a lot about quality of life enforcement. Is this increase in arrest part of that? Not entirely, no. I mean, Tish certainly has a tough on crime message.

She's criticized bail reform and other justice reforms from 2020. And she's talked a lot about doing more of these types of arrests in the subways and created this quality of life division just to do these types of low-level enforcement. But looking at the stance, this trend predates her. And certainly with Pat at Larsonese, they started going up with Mayor Eric Adams. And the same is also true for drug arrest. But really, at least with shoplifting, this is bigger than just the police. Retailers have been complaining about what they call organized retail theft since the pandemic. And prosecutors have sort of rallied to support them when they could, they're creating these training programs for retailers

so that they can increase the penalties for shoplifting from fines to actual jail time. Basically, they're finding workarounds for ways to get around the fact that judges can't set bail on these small thefts. I talked to Ariel Reed about this. She's a lawyer with the Legal Aid Society, and she said these types of arrest,

and these types of deaths, in custody are happening because the city doesn't have any other solution. Anytime this happens, throw them in jail, throw them in jail, throw them in jail, don't actually get at what is causing the underlying behavior in an attempt to solve that. One of the things that Commissioner Tisch and Mayor Eric Adams have talked about a lot about is this idea of perception of safety and that New Yorkers, that New Yorkers have. And from Reed's perspective, things like drug addiction, treatment, health services and homeless services would make New Yorkers feel safer without having to arrest

these people. WNIC is Charles Lane. Charles, thank you very much for this. No, thank you. Thanks for listening. This is NYC now from WNYC. Be sure to catch us every weekday, three times a day for your top news headlines and occasional deep vows. Also subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.