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Jail Unions Want More Protections, Urge DOC to Isolate New Prisoners

By RICHARD KHAVKINE
Posted 3/19/20

Following the announcement that a uniformed Department of Correction employee and, it was later confirmed by the DOC, a detainee had contracted coronavirus earlier in the day, the president of the city Correction Officers’ union March 18 called on the department to provide staff with additional tools, specifically heavy duty air-purifying respirators, to his members.  

The DOC’s Deputy Commissioner for Public Information, Peter Thorne, said that the uniformed member—identified by Elias Husamudeen, the head of the Correction Officers’ Benevolent Association, as a Rikers Island Correction Officer—"is assigned to a post that does not routinely include contact with people in custody and will not return to work until medically cleared per DOHMH guidance.”

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