A Rikers Island inmate behind bars for allegedly slashing a stranger with a boxcutter died in custody this week – marking the town’s first detainee demise in 2025, officers and sources mentioned.
Ramel Powell, 38 – who had been held since July 2023 in connection to a Manhattan assault in Could of that 12 months – died round 2:15 a.m. Wednesday contained in the Otis Bantum Correctional Facility throughout the metropolis’s most infamous lockup, in keeping with the Division of Correction.
Powell’s reason behind demise was not instantly identified.
“I, and the complete NYC Division of Correction, specific our deepest sympathy to the family members of Mr. Powell,” DOC Commissioner Lynelle Maginley-Liddle mentioned in an announcement. “We’re conducting a full investigation into this tragic occasion.”
The DOC notified the federal monitor, the town’s Board of Correction, the State Legal professional Basic’s Workplace, the State Fee of Correction and the town’s Division of Investigation in connection to the demise, in keeping with a spokesperson.
Powell was awaiting trial for allegedly slashing one other man with a boxcutter on Delancey Road close to Essex Road on the Decrease East Facet on Could 8, 2023, in keeping with sources and a prison criticism.
In that assault, Powell acquired into an argument with a “full stranger” on the road, sources mentioned.
He initially walked away from his goal earlier than pulling a boxcutter out of his backpack, circling again towards the sufferer and putting him on the left aspect of his face with the weapon, the sources mentioned.
The sufferer was taken to Bellevue Hospital, the place he required stitches for the deep gash, the sources mentioned.
He was held on a second-degree cost, however the district legal professional’s workplace had deliberate to indict him on the upgraded cost of first-degree assault.
Within the meantime, prosecutors had requested that Powell be held on $100,000 bail in connection to the slashing – which he allegedly dedicated whereas on supervised launch for one more stranger assault, which left that sufferer needing stitches.
He was charged with third-degree assault, a category A misdemeanor, in connection to that assault, sources mentioned.
Powell had three prior felony convictions, sources mentioned.
His newest slashing case was prepared for trial, however was being adjourned as he thought of hiring a brand new protection legal professional, sources mentioned.
If convicted of the highest cost, he might have confronted at the very least three years behind bars.
5 individuals died on Rikers Island final 12 months, after 9 died in custody in 2023 and 19 died in 2022.
A 2019 legislation envisioned closing the beleaguered island complicated by 2027 and constructing a smaller jail in every of the 5 boroughs.
In a scathing 65-page contempt order again in November, Manhattan federal decide Laura Taylor Swain blasted the town for rising deaths of inmates, skyrocketing “makes use of of power” by correction officers, and a slew of different failures.
Swain mentioned she was “inclined” to order a federal takeover of the troubled jail complicated.
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