A woman held on Rikers Island died by possible suicide early Thursday, according to correction officials and sources.
The death, an apparent suicide according to sources, took place in West Facility and is the fourth jail-related fatality since Feb. 19 and the second in five days.
Correction officials said the woman was declared dead at 5:23 a.m. They did not confirm the cause of death.
Staff handing out breakfast did not receive a response from her at about 4:47 a.m. and tried to revive her with a medical team but were unsuccessful.
The case is under investigation.
The latest death comes as the city’s jail population has crested over 7,000. On Saturday, Ariel Quidone, 20, who had been detained at Rikers for about a week, died in Elmhurst Hospital after being taken there Thursday.
Ramel Powell died Feb. 19 in the Otis Bantum Correctional Center and Terence Moore died Feb. 24 in a holding cell in the Manhattan courthouse.
The West Facility started as the communicable disease facility, but has since mushroomed into a hodgepodge of ailing people, difficult to handle detainees and a number of dorm units that were recently expanded. The total population is now in the hundreds.
The death is the first indication women were also being housed in West, which has been a male facility for decades.
Citing overcrowding, DOC received approval March 11 to expand 12 dorms in the West Facility from 50 beds to 56 beds — one of three jails where they asked to increase the population.
Figures posted by the Vera Institute show the jail population has gone over 7,000 for the first time in years. Former DOC Commissioner Louis Molina predicted it would reach that number by the end of 2024 and was only a few months off.
The Adams administration has characterized the population increase as unavoidable given the serious charges facing many of the detainees. But on Wednesday, the Independent Rikers Commission in a report called the jail population “artificial inflated” due to court backlogs and the high mentally ill population.
