THE NEW BLACK VIEW

Vol. 112 No. 38 | September 23, 2021 - September 29, 2021

©2021 The Amsterdam News | $1.00 New York City

SAW IT COMING

(Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography Office)

School year starts with anger, classroom closures

By STEPHON JOHNSON

Amsterdam News Staff

By ARIAMA LONG

Report for America Corps Member / AmNews Staff Writer

“The disruption of a classroom closing three days after school began due to COVID exposure is annoying,” said Tamika Hall, a parent of three schoolaged children. “Not only that, the DOE policy of still sending siblings of exposed children to school makes zero sense. They have no policy in place for cross-contamination and that is a HUGE misstep when trying to control the spread.

“Parents have to work.”

This week, critics’ and parents’ worst fears came true when classrooms were closed along with one entire school because of suspected or confirmed positive COVID tests.

According to the Department of Education statistics, as of Tuesday evening, there were 1,487 confirmed cumulative positive COVID cases between Sept. 13 and Sept. 21. Of those, 985 were students. There were 170 students recorded on Sept. 21 alone.

One school, P.S. 79 in East Harlem had to close completely after 19 positive COVID tests. According to Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer, most of the positive tests could be traced back pre-school orientation.

So, what does New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio think about this? Stay

See SCHOOL on page 8

More death on Rikers Island, mayoral candidates weigh in

By ARIAMA C. LONG

Report for America Corps Member / Amsterdam News Staff

person this year to die on Rikers Island, fanning the flames of outrage over the deplorable conditions in the city’s most notorious jail complex.

According to NY1, another detainee being held across the

Some Haitian migrants make it through, will stay in US awaiting asylum hearings

By SAM BOJARSKI

Courtesy of The Haitian Times

and planned to head further north from the border town.

Walson Etienne waited at a Del Rio, Texas, gas station with a plane ticket in his hand. Pulling out his smartphone, he showcased his travel itinerary—a flight to Dallas-

river from Rikers at the Vernon C. Bain Center died the morning of Wednesday, September 22, making the 34-year-old the 12th to die.

The Department of Corrections (DOC) responded to a medical emergency, then transported him to Lincoln Hospital where he was pronounced dead, said NY1 who broke the story.

The detainee had been on Rikers Island since 2019.

“Rikers Island has been a national embarrassment for far too long and the situation there now is completely unacceptable,” said Mayor-elect and Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams in a statement after he toured the facility on Sept. 3.

In a city council committee meeting on criminal justice held Sept. 15, councilmembers as well as Department of Correction Commissioner Vincent Schiraldi and Public Advocate Jumaane Williams testified again to horrendous conditions of the jail and that at present that have put both correctional officers and the incarcerated in their custody at risk of violence and nutrition deprivation among other things.

Isaabdul died of what “appears to be natural” causes in the North Infirmary Command facility on Sunday, Sept. 19, though he had complained of “not feeling well,” reported the Associated Press (AP). He had been in custody since Aug. 18 and was being held on a state warrant for parole violation, said the AP.

In Tuesday’s briefing, Sept. 21, Mayor Bill de Blasio said the investigation is ongoing and there are some confidentiality issues surrounding Isaabdul’s death in response to an Amsterdam News’ inquiry.

Dr. Mitchell Katz, president and chief executive officer of NYC Health + Hospitals, added about Isaabdul’s death that “if we believed it was COVID, we would have had to have done contact tracing and isolation of a large number of people, which we have not done. I think that gives the answer without saying anything about the person’s health.”

“It is a bad situation, it must be addressed very, very aggressively and it is being addressed aggressively,” said de Blasio in the briefing. “We know that because of COVID a series of problems were set in motion. We have to turn every one of them around. That’s our responsibility. That’s my responsibility.”

The city is committed to processing people in less than 24 hours and opening up more holding spaces, moving incarcerated to state facilities, getting help from the NYPD, and bringing in additional capacity to help improve safety and security, said de Blasio.

Gov. Kathy Hochul signed the Less is More criminal justice bill last Friday. It helped move more than 100 incarcerated people, out of a population of more than 6,000, off of Rikers Island sooner and is supposed to eliminate people getting locked up for technical parole violations.

Another keynote in de Blasio’s plan to improve the conditions on Rikers is reassessing the correctional workforce and cracking down on mass absenteeism that’s been rampant since last year.

Councilmember Keith Powers, who chairs the criminal justice committee, said that the jail has experienced a “collapse of basic jail operations” as abuse of force and assault has surged against jailees and correctional staff alike, due in large part to massive staff shortages.

Many chimed in that overworked corrections officers are often at the jail without food, water, meals or bathroom breaks for up to 24 hours under duress with multiple shifts, which of course, would lead to them not coming into work.

Schiraldi said in the committee meeting that there are currently about 8,400 correctional staff with 2,700 claiming sick leave.

“All of this stems from the fact that you don’t have enough correctional officers. Many who are going to work are being asked to do three shifts, which is intolerable,” said Republican mayoral candidate Curtis Sliwa.

Sliwa, who heads the Guardian Angels organization, maintains that there should be at least 2,000 additional officers on Rikers that have received proper training, and that de Blasio transferring patrol cops to the jail is “ridiculous.” He also criticized de Blasio for not visiting the jail.

“Basic health and safety standards are not being met because of increases to the jail population, lack of resources for staff and facilities, and needed policy changes to address this crisis head-on,” said Adams.

Adams’ ideas for fixing the Rikers situation includes increased funding for the prosecutor’s office to expedite cases, build emergency off-site facilities, end housing gangs by affiliation, and a ban on forced triple-shifts for corrections officers.

Both Sliwa and Adams said that the “mentally ill” or disturbed didn’t belong on Rikers and should be moved to a facility off the island where they could be treated.

Ariama C. Long is a Report for America corps member and writes about culture and politics in New York City for the AmsterdamNews. Your donation to match our RFA grant helps keep her writing stories like this one; please consider making a tax-deductible gift of any amount today by visiting: https://tinyurl.com/fcszwj8w

Haiti

Continued from page 1

Fort Worth, then to LaGuardia International Airport in New York City, where he said he planned to stay with family.

A Port-au-Prince native, Etienne worked as a construction worker in Chile before starting his journey north to the Mexico-United States border two months ago. He had lost his job last year when the COVID19 pandemic hit, and he could not fathom returning to Haiti.

“We had to come over here to try to find work so we can eat,” said Etienne, who traveled with his Dominican-born wife Jasmine Ramirez, who is five months pregnant. “My country is in bad shape. There was an earthquake. President Moïse was assassinated. We’re looking for a better life.”

As dusk fell Monday evening and Etienne awaited a ride to the airport, at least 6,000 migrants had already been removed from the camp. Some ended up back in Haiti on the multiple daily removal flights the U.S. intends to send to Port-au-Prince and Cap-Haïtien. Etienne was in a group of about 20 migrants, mostly Haitian, who were released and given a court hearing for potential asylum, according to volunteers.

The migrants were heading to Missouri, New York, Florida and other states where they have relatives, said Valerie Rodriguez, a volunteer with the Val Verde Border Humanitarian Coalition. Border officials released them after processing, giving them notices to appear at immigration hearings in their respective destinations, she said.

For Dumel Chery, that destination will be Bridgeport, Connecticut. Chery, also a former construction worker, shared a folded-up slip of paper with the name of the city and a relative’s phone number. “I traveled with my sisters and lived in Chile,” Chery said.

As Chery spoke, Rodriguez was busy darting around the parking lot, loading up those bound for the Del Rio airport into a van. The coalition has helped coordinate transportation out of town. Some migrants had flights leaving early Tuesday, she said

“Unfortunately there are no hotels at all tonight, so I’m going to take them to the airport, and they’ll just have to sit outside at the airport [until] it opens,” Rodriguez said late Monday. “A lot of them were able to get on the train.”

U.S. officials on Monday still planned a swift removal of the thousands of migrants waiting at the Del Rio border crossing. Armed policemen and National Guard members stood at the gates of a long, metal border fence prohibiting people from approaching the encampment, underneath the International Bridge. One journalist who was inside the fence hours earlier reported that few, if any people are crossing the Rio Grande, after law enforcement blocked off part of the riverbank.

Six deportation flights were scheduled to travel to Haiti on Sept. 21, despite the deepening political and humanitarian crises resulting from the president’s assassination, earthquake and persistent gang violence.

“There are only two careers in Haiti, politics and gangs,” said Etienne, the New York-bound migrant. “I don’t want to carry guns. That’s why I left my country to come here.”