Correctional officers at Rikers prison covered up failures related to inmate's 2022 overdose death: lawsuit

After a Bronx man died of an overdose in 2022 at Rikers Island Jail, correctional staff falsified records to create the false impression that they had responded earlier to his medical crisis and given the dying man an overdose medication, his family says in a new lawsuit.

Gilberto Garcia, 27, died of acute fentanyl poisoning in a cell at the Anna M. Kross Center on October 31, 2022, after he reached his hands through the bars to alert correctional staff when he was in medical distress.

His brother, Gilson Garcia, was in the next cell. Gilson also tried to alert correctional staff, but when officers did not act, he unsuccessfully attempted to revive him using the overdose medication he had taken from an officer and performing CPR for which he was not trained.

“When I called for help, this CO took his time and moved slowly. I ran out of my brother's cell. I ran to her and got her Narcan,” Gilson Garcia wrote in an affidavit filed with the lawsuit. “I gave my brother Narcan. I had never administered Narcan before. I also performed CPR on him. I tried to do CPR as best as I could, but I had never been trained to do it.”

But the records show, and the complaint alleges, that DOC officials completely omitted his intervention from their reports, allegedly to cover up their own errors. The allegations are contained in an amended complaint filed early Sunday in Bronx Supreme Court by Gilson Garcia, 26, and a second relative, Venus Mendez, in their lawsuit against the city. The DOC did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The file provides a step-by-step record of the breakdowns that allegedly occurred before and after Gilberto Garcia's death.

“The most disturbing part of this case to me is the way the DOC kept Gilson out of this whole tragedy,” said the family's attorney, MK Kaishian. “They failed to report that he called for help twice, that he administered Narcan, that he started CPR, all to hide their own guilt in their failure.”

In the hours before Garcia's fatal overdose, correctional officers failed to check cells, failed to properly leave their posts to take repeated breaks, failed to document their absences and allowed inmates to cover their cells with sheets – a practice prohibited under DOC policy for safety reasons, the amended complaint states.

Much of this sequence was revealed by comparing surveillance videos with correctional staff accounts of Garcia's death.

“Their story did not match Gilson's story and I'm sure Gilson would not lie to his family,” said Yarielis Silverio, Gilson Garcia's partner. “I think they should definitely be held accountable. It's outrageous to play with people's lives and their families like that.”

A captain and three officers did not notify medical staff of the emergency until 12:23 p.m., five minutes after Gilson Garcia and other inmates told them his brother was in serious trouble, the complaint says.

But a DOC employee falsely claimed in at least one written report that officers alerted CHS at 12:10 p.m., a full 13 minutes before they actually notified CHS, the amended complaint says.

Although it was Gilson Garcia who administered the Narcan, correctional officers created records claiming responsibility, the lawsuit says, based on documents obtained from the DOC and investigators.

After his brother's death, the family went to Rikers for answers, and the DOC tried to ban them from entering the prison for 45 days until Kaishian lifted the ban, Silverio and Kaishian said.

Meanwhile, the DOC held Gilson Garcia for an agonizing month in the same housing unit where his brother died, leaving emotional scars that will take a long time to heal, the lawsuit says.

“I did not want to be in that unit and often asked to be moved. I did not feel comfortable walking past his cell because I constantly expected him to be there,” he wrote in his affidavit.

The amended complaint is consistent with the findings of a Board of Correction report on prison deaths in 2022.

Remarkably, a day or two after Garcia's death, the committee's investigators discovered that in the same unit, individuals appeared to be smoking drugs in front of correctional officers – as if nothing had happened.

Garcia died at a time when nonfatal overdoses in prisons were skyrocketing. Overdoses continued to be the leading cause of death in prisons in 2022 and 2023, the lawsuit says.

When he was admitted to Rikers Hospital on November 2, 2019, Garcia tested positive for benzodiazepines, or “downers.” He was subsequently charged with drug possession three times at the Kross Center.

The BOC investigation and amended complaint indicate that Garcia missed 16 medical appointments—mostly to treat his mental condition—but there was a discrepancy between DOC and CHS records regarding the reasons for those missed visits.

CHS documented that 13 appointments were missed because correctional staff did not bring Garcia to visit. However, DOC documented only one missed visit, according to the BOC report.

A recent lawsuit filed by public defender groups accuses correctional staff of falsifying records of missed medical visits on a larger scale than previously known.

The prison service declined to comment on this allegation.

Gilberto Garcia is buried in a New Jersey cemetery and the family visits him regularly. But Gilson Garcia, who tried to save his brother's life, is barred from visiting, Kaishian said. He is serving a 10-year sentence for robbery in a prison in the northern part of the state.

“Gilberto had a lot of friends and we go once a month, every 31st,” said Silverio, 27, a case manager at a city home. “We visit him as often as we can.”