Newly surfaced video shows how a 'fight night' unfolded within an empty cell in Rikers Island as guards in the sparsely-staffed unit refuse to step in, with a judge eventually releasing a man who was attacked because the jail failed to protect him.
The October 19 altercation in cell 15 at the George R. Vierno Center, an 850-bed jail on Rikers, was caught on surveillance video and published by the New York Times.
Inmates crowd around a cell as Bacalao, a leader from the Dominican gang Trinitarios, orders different men to fight each other.
Other videos from the jail show inmates holding makeshift weapons and throwing things at a detainee hiding behind a corrections officer - just a sliver of the chaos that has gripped New York's largest pre-trial jail as the COVID-19 pandemic worsens staffing shortages.
One of the men who was ordered to fight is a former member of the Crips gang identified in court records as Relator G.
He was released last month, with a judge commenting that the Department of Correction's inability to control the jail 'was tantamount to deliberate indifference.'
Video from October 19 shows inmates waiting outside cell 15 at the George R. Vierno Center in Rikers Island
The inmates are watching a 'fight night' take place inside the empty cell
Nearby, a corrections officer appears to watch the commotion but doesn't step in. One inmate who was hurt in the fight later said that a guard told the gang leader who ordered the fights to 'calm it down' or wait until later because 'they are making it too obvious'
Rikers Island, home to most of New York City's pre-trial detainees, has been plagued with staff shortages and lawlessness worsened by the pandemic
Judge April Newbauer said the conditions of confinement for the inmate, only identified as 'Relator G,' amounted to a clear violation of the constitutional right to due process as he was subjected to underground fights at the prison, which were allegedly ignored by a shrinking staff, according to the court documents.
Correction Commissioner Vincent Schiraldi and Mayor Bill de Blasio 'utterly failed the public as well as this (detainee) by ignoring the looming threat of a crisis at Rikers Island, by delaying emergency measures as staff shortages increased, and by not adopting an 'all hands on deck' approach to this entirely foreseeable crisis,' Newbauer wrote.
She added that the Department of Correction's choice not to rebut the claims of abuse made by the inmate 'spoke volumes' to the conditions of the prison.
'People marched for George Floyd - I think there needs to be a similar movement for the people on Rikers Island,' said lawyer Eric M. Burse of New York County Defender Services, who represented Relator G.
'Those people over there don’t have much of a voice. They are locked up. It is incumbent upon regular ordinary citizens to sound the alarm just like my client did.'
Videos of the 'fight night' and other altercations were obtained by New York County Defender Services as part of Relator G.'s petition to be let out.
Footage shows gang members hyping inmates up as they're ordered to fight each other.
The fights appear to take place inside a closed, empty cell for the entertainment of a gang leader. Other inmates cheer from outside.
The men, some of whom even got along beforehand, are ordered to fight by the gang leader who runs the unit and orders guards around.
The winner got a cigarette, according to court records and interviews conducted by the Times.
Relator G., who did not want to be identified by his name for fear of reprisal from the gang that ran his unit at Rikers, was arrested in June on first-degree robbery charges and was awaiting trial at Rikers.
He was tapped to enter the fight by Bacalao. He said he fought with another inmate for two minutes before he hit his head on a metal toilet and bed frame and bruised his neck and back.
He said he recognized the man he was told to fight.
'I felt stupid. This guy has nothing against me,' Relator G. told the Times.
Eric M. Burse, a trial lawyer at New York County Defender Services, represented Relator G. in his claim to
