17 Corrections Officers to Be Disciplined in Transgender Man’s Death

More than a dozen New York City Department of Correction officers will be disciplined for their conduct surrounding the death of Layleen Xtravaganza Cubilette-Polanco, 27, a transgender [man] who died last year while in solitary confinement at Rikers Island jail.

Three officers and one captain will be suspended without pay immediately, the department said in a statement Friday. It was not immediately clear what disciplinary actions the remaining 13 officers would face.

The announcement comes several weeks after Bronx District Attorney Darcel D. Clark declined to file charges following a six-month investigation into the circumstances of Cubilette-Polanco’s death. . .

Several weeks before [he] died, Cubilette-Polanco had been hospitalized at the Elmhurst Hospital Prison Ward for psychiatric care after “showing radical changes in behavior” including shouting, crying, rolling around on the floor, talking to herself, expressing suicidal thoughts and charging at a jail guard, according to a Board of Correction report.

After returning to Rikers Island, jail staff tried to get [him] sent to restrictive housing, or solitary confinement, as a punishment for charging at the guard, according to the report. However, a psychiatrist “verbally stated that due to [his] medical history as it pertains to seizure disorder, that he would not be able to authorized [sic] a cell housing placement” in a restrictive housing unit. (Read more from “17 Corrections Officers to Be Disciplined in Transgender Man’s Death” HERE)

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