Officials on Friday approved the release of 56 detainees from Rikers Island to help blunt the potential of a coronavirus outbreak in the jail complex.
The lucky detainees are parole violators and defendants awaiting trial; their release was approved by district attorneys throughout the five boroughs, according to a spokesman for the Office of Court Administration.
Three hail from Queens; eight are from the Bronx; 28 are from Brooklyn; seven are from Staten Island and ten are from Manhattan.
The decision comes on the heels of a Legal Aid Society lawsuit filed Thursday against the Department of Corrections and calling for the release of 116 detainees in city jails suffering from asthma, heart disease and diabetes, or who are age 50 or older — all conditions that would make them especially vulnerable to COVID-19.
Mayor Bill de Blasio announced Thursday that he looked to release 40 inmates from Rikers who are most susceptible to the disease or face relatively minor charges.
At least four correction officers and one inmate at Rikers have tested positive for the virus, with the head doctor at Rikers Island warning Thursday that a “storm is coming” in that the coronavirus would inevitably spread through the complex.
“To be clear, the public servants who care for those in your jails have been planning for this storm for weeks and months. We will muster every tool of public health, science and medicine to try to keep our patients safe. We will apply every novel treatment and scarce test,” the doctor, Ross MacDonald, wrote in a Twitter thread.
“We will put ourselves at personal risk and ask little in return But we cannot change the fundamental nature of jail,” he went on.
“We cannot socially distance dozens of elderly men living in a dorm, sharing a bathroom. Think of a cruise ship recklessly boarding more passengers each day.”