A report by the New York State Commission of Corrections asked for a civil probe into the “incompetent” treatment of a schizophrenic inmate by prison officials.
Bradley Ballard in 2010.
AP Photo/New York State Department of Correctional Services
In 2013, Bradley Ballard, a paranoid schizophrenic inmate with diabetes, was found lying naked in his Rikers Island jail cell nearly seven days after he was locked up alone without medical supervision or care. He was covered in feces with a piece of cloth tied around his severely infected genitals.
Hours later, he died after suffering three heart attacks in a hospital. His death was ruled a homicide by the medical examiner.
A report by the New York State Commission of Corrections, obtained by the Associated Press, has called for the Department of Justice to launch a criminal investigation into Ballard's death. The DOJ told AP it is reviewing the report.
The commission's review said that Ballard's treatment by Rikers Island officials was "so incompetent and inadequate as to shock the conscience."
The report, which the commission refused to release without first receiving and reviewing a freedom of information request, implicated New York City and its medical provider Corizon Health in Ballard's death, saying their lapses violated state law.
From the AP:
"Had Ballard received adequate and appropriate medical and mental health care and supervision and intervention when he became critically ill, his death would have been prevented," the report said. "The medical and mental health care ... was so incompetent and inadequate as to shock the conscience."
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio with juvenile inmates on Rikers Island in 2014.
AP Photo/The Daily News, Susan Watts, Pool
"Every day I'm thinking about him," Ballard's mother, Beverly Ann Griffin, told the Associated Press. "I'm so angry with what they did to him."
Griffin filed a wrongful death lawsuit against New York City in September 2014 saying her son was denied medication and neglected by prison officials and medical staff.
Health workers visited Ballard only twice -- for a minute -- during the six days and eight hours that he was locked up in his cell for making a lewd gesture at a jail guard.
According to the NYS Commission of Corrections repot, at least three high-ranking jail officials passed by his cell without calling for medical supervision. One official, Turhan Gumusdere, who was was seen on video outside Ballard's cell, is now the warden of the facility, the Associated Press reported.
Nearly seven days after his cell was opened, Ballard told a doctor, "I need help." He was so weak he had to be lifted in a blanket and placed on the gurney. He died hours later at the hospital.
"When you took my son away from me, part of me died too," Griffin, 61, said at the news conference after filing her lawsuit. "I will never be the same again."
A spokesperson for Corizon, which provides healthcare for the city's jails, told the AP that Ballard's death was being internally investigated. An investigation by state prosecutors is ongoing.
The report recommended the U.S. Department of Justice open a criminal investigation into Ballard's death and called for a probe into Rikers Island as well as Corizon.
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