An independent oversight board for the Rikers Island jail complex issued a damning report on Monday that found three inmates died this year after they fell ill and correction officers failed to render aid.

One man was sick for days, vomiting and defecating on himself, but correction officers didn’t bring him to nine scheduled medical appointments, the report said. Another wasn’t resuscitated by two correction officers assigned to his unit, one of whom wasn’t even medically cleared to interact with inmates. And a third died after choking on an orange; he was brought to the medical clinic by other incarcerated people because officers didn’t help.

And yet on Tuesday, when the oversight body, the New York City Board of Correction, held a public meeting with the Department of Correction that runs Rikers, board members barely pressed correction officials on their allegations. One board member recently appointed by Mayor Eric Adams, Joseph Ramos, even described recent deaths — including an apparent suicide — as “natural.”

The board’s findings come as advocates and defense attorneys for Rikers inmates are agitating for a federal receivership, in which a judge would order control of the jails be turned over to the federal government.

To read the rest of the story, go to Gothamist.com.