They Saw Him Hanging and Did Nothing: A Teens Agony in Rikers – The New York Times

Then, at 11:15 p.m., he started climbing onto benches in the holding pen, a second official said. He was topless.

Then Mr. Feliciano used his sweater to create a noose, climbed on a partition next to the toilet, tied one end around his neck and the other around the metal hook in the ceiling, and stepped off, the officials said.

Two correction officers had looked in on him, but his feet appeared to be touching the floor even as the sweater was tightened around his neck, the first official said.

Another officer saw what had happened and rushed to get a supervisor, the official said.

Mr. Martinez, who had passed through the intake area as he returned from an urgent care unit on a gurney, said a sweater was covering Mr. Felicianos face and his body was not moving. Alarmed, he yelled at the officers to do something. He recalled one of the officers saying to him, Tell your buddy to come down.

They took it as a joke, he said. They let him hang there for a long time.

Mr. Husamudeen said officers are trained to make sure a detainee is not faking a suicide attempt before entering a pen or cell on the theory they might be lured in and then attacked.

He said that if the metal piece had not been left in the cell, Mr. Feliciano may not have been able to hurt himself. It jeopardizes security, he said.

Six days earlier, another detainee, Angel Richards-Bailey, 26, who has bipolar disorder and had initially been housed in a mental health unit, had used the piece of metal to hang himself.

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They Saw Him Hanging and Did Nothing: A Teens Agony in Rikers - The New York Times