
“All we hear are the inmates banging on the windows to get our attention” – Justin Brannan
There are growing concerns over the frigid conditions reported at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, New York.
Huffington Post reports that Governor Andrew Cuomo called Sunday for a Justice Department probe into the problem, saying reports suggest the conditions left more than a thousand prisoners without heat, hot water or electricity during subzero temperatures.
Crowds have been gathering outside the facility for days to protest the conditions with some chanting “Move them out!”
Washington Post wrote that some remained at the site overnight, shivering and indignant, in solidarity with inmates.
“All we hear are the inmates banging on the windows to get our attention,” New York City Council member Justin Brannan (D) said in a video posted to Twitter after he visited the jail Friday. “And when they see that we’re here, they bang louder.”
“Inmates are banging on S-O-S on windows to get our attention. This is surreal,” tweeted the New York City Councilman.
Those with connections to inmates described deteriorating conditions inside the jail, with inmates stuck inside dark, freezing cells, getting sick and “frantic,” according to the Times.
“They’re really, really scared,” Rachel Bass, a paralegal at the Brooklyn federal defenders office, told the newspaper Thursday after she had taken calls from about 15 inmates.
“They don’t have extra blankets. They don’t have access to the commissary to buy an extra sweatshirt.”
The Federal Bureau of Prisons, which runs the jail near Brooklyn’s Sunset Park neighborhood, has denied conditions are so dire. In a statement Sunday, officials said inmates had hot water for showers and in their cells’ sinks, and they estimated power would be fully restored by Monday.