A correction officer was suspended for not properly checking a Rikers Island jail facility in the hours before a detainee’s death last month, according to a watchdog report obtained by Gothamist.
The federal monitor of the troubled complex said in a separate report this week that the episode fits into a larger pattern of deficient touring practices by guards and their supervisors, as Rikers faces more stringent oversight.
The watchdog report, released by the city Board of Correction through a Freedom of Information request, found the officer neglected to survey their assigned area every half hour on the night 32-year-old Aramis Furse was found unresponsive in his cell at the Otis Bantum Correctional Center.
The officer also left the housing area several times without permission, which allowed detainees to exchange contraband and move freely between cells, all while some cell windows and cameras were obscured, the investigation found.
Officials said the guard requested medical assistance and gave Furse a dose of the opioid antidote Narcan after discovering him unconscious. Still, he was later declared dead at a Queens hospital.
The officer, who is not named in the report, received a 30-day suspension following Furse’s Dec. 7 death, according to the Board of Correction.
The city Department of Correction declined to comment on the case, saying it is still under investigation. The union that represents Rikers guards did not respond to an inquiry.
The previously unreported suspension comes as a court-appointed “remediation manager” will soon take over Rikers after years of dysfunction and violence. It also comes as Mayor Zohran Mamdani looks to improve conditions at the jails and has yet to announce who will lead the correction department under his administration.
“There’s just so many questions I have no answers to,” Furse’s father, William Furse, said, noting the agency has not consistently communicated with the family. “We don’t have no closure.”
In a lengthy court filing this week, the federal monitor currently overseeing Rikers under a 2015 consent decree said 28 department staffers were disciplined from January 2022 to June 2025 in part for not conducting proper tours in cases where someone died in custody.
“Given the frequency with which touring deficiencies occur, and the frequency with which serious incidents occur from staff’s failure to conduct proper tours, a larger number of corrective actions would be expected,” the filing stated.
Spokespeople for the Department of Correction did not answer questions about the monitor’s conclusions, including that “the circumstances surrounding most of the 15 in-custody deaths in 2025 reflect the worst possible outcomes of the dereliction of duty.” The agency said it is reviewing the report.
“[T]o date there has not been sufficient forward momentum to counteract the gravitational pull of the Department’s many dysfunctional practices and entrenched cultural opposition to reform,” the report stated. Last year’s death toll of Rikers detainees was three times the total in 2024, according to officials.
On the night Furse died, after a mandatory 9 p.m. lock-in, the suspended guard left their post three times for about 10-20 minutes each, according to the Board of Correction investigation. While they were away, surveillance footage showed another detainee sliding what looked like a white rolled cigarette under Furse’s door just after 11 p.m. He appeared to accept it, the report said, and other detainees came to check on him several times, flicking the light switch outside his cell and banging on his door.
Although the officer and a supervisor toured the housing area at points over the next few hours, according to the report, around 2 a.m., the officer noticed Furse was unresponsive and radioed for help. Paramedics took him to Mount Sinai Queens Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
Furse’s father and sister told Gothamist the guard’s 30-day suspension was inadequate.
“ I no longer have my brother for the rest of the time that I’m alive,” Anjulie Furse said. “Not that there’s a way to measure somebody’s lifespan or what they mean to you and put it into years, but come on, a 30-day suspension?”
Anjulie said her family had to wait more than a month to bury her brother and could not hold his funeral until Jan. 9. His relatives said they still don’t know exactly how he died.
A spokesperson for the city’s Office of the Chief Medical Examiner this week said it’s working to determine Furse’s cause and manner of death.
“You could see he was crying because there were water marks on his eyes,” William Furse said, recalling the sight of his son’s body at the hospital after hours of waiting and confusing directives from jail officials.
Furse was arrested in May 2025 on burglary, robbery and criminal mischief charges, according to the Board of Correction report. The nonprofit Legal Aid Society and Brooklyn Defender Services said in a statement after his death that it “serves as yet another stark example of how dangerous conditions are inside Rikers Island and how ill-equipped DOC is to handle this crisis.”
The city’s jail population has been hovering around 7,000 people, the highest level since 2019, according to the monitor’s report and a city comptroller dashboard. Officials and experts say that makes it virtually impossible that the city will meet its legal deadline to close Rikers and replace the complex with four borough-based jails by September 2027.
Anjulie Furse said her brother was devoted to his parents and five siblings and was known for his vibrant sense of style. She said he was optimistic about life after his eventual release.
“ He wanted to start a business and he wanted to really get back out here and make a difference and rectify a mistake that he knows he had made.”