Rikers inmates were locked in cells after a fire broke out

In April, Rikers Island workers held eight people locked in their cells for nearly 30 minutes in April while workers tried to extinguish a fire and smoke spreading through a housing unit, according to a report from the city’s Board of Correction.

The fire started in the complex’s North Infirmary Command, which houses people with acute medical conditions who require care or have disabilities. About a dozen people, including staff members and four inmates, were taken to hospitals after the fire, the report released Friday said.

A review of the Department of Correction’s response to the fire revealed a series of deficiencies in protocol, according to the investigation by the nine-member board, the body responsible for protecting the rights of incarcerated people. The sprinkler system’s water supply to the residential area was turned off at some point before the fire, the report shows. Employees had failed to conduct weekly and monthly fire safety audits; corrections officers stopped their mandatory 30-minute tours for two hours that day; and the two officers on duty from the department’s fire safety unit were unreachable for several minutes.

A spokesperson for the Department of Correction said the agency would review the board’s report and recommendations.

The Legal Aid Society, which represents people held at Rikers and has called for a federal takeover of the prison complex, said the report details “serious mismanagement by multiple entities” within the Corrections Department.

“It is difficult to imagine an institution in our city where such a complex and colossal failure to prevent and control a catastrophic fire would not result in immediate accountability from the leadership,” Legal Aid said in a statement Friday .

The report comes just weeks after Lynelle Maginley-Liddie, an eight-year veteran of the Corrections Department, became commissioner of the agency, a post left vacant this fall by the departure of Louis A. Molina, who then became assistant deputy mayor . for public safety.

Mr. Molina’s nearly two-year tenure was marked by a failure to stem the violence at the Rikers Island complex, a strained relationship with the federal regulator that oversaw the prison, and accusations of a lack of transparency from watchdogs and advocates for prisoners’ rights.

In August, the Commission of Correction sued the Corrections Department and the city for a lack of transparency, calling for an outside authority to take control of the prisons.

A challenge for Ms. Maginley-Liddie will be addressing the possibility of a federal takeover of Rikers Island.

The case will be decided by a federal judge, Laura Taylor Swain. In July, Judge Swain wrote that Mayor Eric Adams’ administration had failed “to address the dangerous conditions that continue to plague prisons.” In August, she laid out a schedule for a series of legal arguments on the issue.

Ms. Maginley-Liddie has said a federal takeover was not a “foregone conclusion” and that she would use the relationship she had built with the federal monitor, Steve J. Martin, to maintain control of the prison.

But in recent weeks, Manhattan’s top federal prosecutor, Damian Williams, has stepped up efforts to wrest control of the troubled prison system from the Adams administration. In November, Mr. Williams wrote in a lawsuit that appointing an outside authority was the only solution to the ongoing violence and chaos at Rikers.

Nine people have died in the prison complex this year.

The April 6 fire was started in the early afternoon by a man who was frustrated that the Department of Corrections emergency department had seized his “non-institutional shoes” during a search that morning, the report said. It was the fifth time that the man started a fire, the Supervisory Board noted.

The fire was first reported around 1:15 p.m., when the smoke detector in the unit’s common area activated, the report said. Body-worn camera footage showed a corrections officer trying to put out the fire with a fire extinguisher around 1:28 p.m., while a supervisor could be heard giving officers a direct order not to open the cells, investigators found.

The fire brigade, who were called by staff members when fire safety unit officers on duty could not be contacted, arrived at the North Infirmary Command at 1.40pm. At 1:41 p.m., corrections officials began evacuating the eight people in custody from their cells.

In its recommendations, the Board of Correction emphasized that immediately evacuating the area where a fire started should be a top priority.

In addition, the Department of Corrections should establish a system that requires periodic inspection of the sprinkler system, the board said.

Erin Nolan reporting contributed.