On Rikers Island over the past two days, the patchwork of life in the jails unfolded. In one facility, a team of correction captains and officers revived a young man who had overdosed on drugs, while in another, a detainee with a long record of assaulting staff cut a nurse in the face with a medical tool, officials said.
The “save” took place around 4 p.m. Thursday in the Robert N. Davoren Center, a 53-year-old jail for adolescent detainees that also holds some older men. Correction sources said the 20-year-old detainee initially appeared “loopy,” leading Captain Natasha Thompson to immediately to pull the man out of his cell.
Thompson and two other captains, Derrick Stepney and Christopher Branch, used the anti-overdose medication Narcan and CPR on the man, who had entered the jails a week ago on March 7. They then transported him “alert and breathing” to the hospital, Annais Morales, the Department of Correction press secretary, said.
He was in critical but stable condition at the intensive care unit at Elmhurst General Hospital Friday afternoon, the sources said.
“The person remains hospitalized. Because of health privacy laws, we cannot disclose their current medical condition,” Morales said.
Correction Captains Association President Paul Idlett cited their “outstanding teamwork” in making the save. “Your quick response, dedication and professionalism made a significant difference,” Idlett said in a message.
“This is the kind of thing we do on a regular basis, but it doesn’t get highlighted often,” Idlett remarked to The News Friday.
Meanwhile, not far to the east from the Davoren Center on Thursday, detainee Claude White was in the medical clinic around 9:30 a.m. seeing a nurse in the so-called RESH unit at the Rose M. Singer Center, the jail for women built in 1988, DOC records show.
RESH, or Enhanced Supervision Housing, is a higher security section for men in the Singer Center, which also houses roughly 300 women in a separate section.
At some point in the visit, White removed a 1-inch lancet — a medical implement with a sharp pin used to draw blood — from where he had hidden it in his mouth and cut a male nurse in the face, the records show.
“I shot the doctor,” White declared, using jail slang for stabbing someone, after officers grabbed him, a law enforcement source said.
The nurse sustained a superficial wound to his cheek and was treated off of the island, officials said. He did not reply to messages from The News.
Charges were pending with the Bronx District Attorney’s Office.
In some respects, the nurse was lucky.
White, 36, has left a trail of similar assaults during his two years on Rikers after fatally stabbing straphanger Tavon Silver, 32, on a Manhattan subway train
On July 29, 2023, slightly more than a month after he entered the jails, the 6-foot-3, 319-pound White attacked a mental health clinician in the George R. Vierno Center with what prosecutors described as a “makeshift dagger.”
Prosecutors said as the clinician was talking with another patient, White came up behind them and stabbed the staffer with the long metal shank.
Correction officers grabbed him, but the victim suffered puncture wounds to his face and arm, prosecutors said. After that incident, White was moved to the RESH unit, records show.
White, court records show, has at least four other criminal cases involving assaults in the jails. On Sept. 27, 2023, White allegedly assaulted Correction Officer Ivan Lowe in a third jail, the North Infirmary Command, records show.
Then, on Feb. 22, 2024, White allegedly threw fecal matter on Lowe and a second officer, Kendall Felix, records show.
White earlier pleaded guilty to some of the cases, but has since made an application to withdraw those pleas, the Bronx DA’s Office said. The request is under court review.
“Our jails must be, above all else, safe and secure, especially for the people who work tirelessly to provide care to persons in custody,” DOC spokesman Patrick Rocchio said. “Assaults on any staff will not be tolerated. Their safety is of paramount importance to us.”
White was awaiting trial for the fatal stabbing of Silver. Police said Silver was found with numerous stab wounds on a No. 4 train at the 14th St-Union Square station just after 4 a.m. on June 17, 2023.
Medics took him to Bellevue Hospital where he died. White, identified as homeless, was arrested two days later, police said.
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