The illness came in waves, each one stronger than the last, and 23-year-old Charizma Jones likely felt as if she was drowning on May 4, 2024, when she called 311, a city resource hotline, from her jail cell on Rikers Island, New York for the second time in a week.
“My throat is closing,” she said. Jones claimed jail staff refused to give her antibiotics. She had been receiving minimal treatment for a possible case of scarlet fever the week before.
She begged to be taken to an “actual hospital,” telling the operator, ”This is an emergency, and they said they have no doctors available.”
Others housed in Jones’ unit told investigators she had to lean against a vestibule to keep from falling. Her skin had taken on an orange tint, witnesses said. One detainee held Jones so that she wouldn’t fall on the floor and watched as her eyes rolled back in her head, according to a scathing report released Monday by a jail oversight board.
Repeated attempts to take her to the jail clinic were rebuffed. Finally, her fellow detainees, who were rubbing ice on her skin to cool Jones down, refused to follow staff orders until she was taken for medical care.
But the board found that Jones received no treatment once at the clinic even as her condition worsened. She complained of nausea, vomiting, a fever and chills as she languished in an isolation cell with a broken surveillance camera, according to the report.
The infirmary staff made six attempts to check Jones’ vital signs but were blocked by correction officers who cited “safety” and “security” reasons, investigators found.
After two days of isolation, medical staff were finally able to tend to Jones, but it was too late. She had a high fever and an inflamed or damaged liver and was rushed to a local hospital. Jones would be transferred to several hospitals over the next two months, the report revealed, occasionally refusing doctors’ treatment.
After she went into septic shock, Jones died on July 14 from “multiorgan failure,” according to a preliminary examination.
Jones’ case has brought renewed attention to Rikers, which has a long history of violence and allegations of rampant sexual abuse. The state and city are conducting their own investigations into her death and the judge who monitors conditions at the jail said in a recent court ruling she was considering ordering a federal takeover of the facility.
An attorney for Jones’ family, MK Kaishian, said officers’ actions were “illegal and morally repugnant,” contributing to a “preventable and agonizing” death.
Investigators also found that guards at the infirmary failed to conduct their required rounds before 63-year-old detainee Anthony Jordan had a medical emergency in August. He went into cardiac arrest shortly after and was pronounced dead at a hospital, the report stated.
In a statement, the New York City Department of Correction said it was currently “unable to provide a substantive response” to the findings due to the other ongoing investigations. Jail officials said they planned to respond to “any inaccuracies or omissions in this report” after those investigations are concluded.
“Multiple failures cited in both cases in the BOC report strike serious concern about our ability to keep people alive while in city custody,” Sarena Townsend, a former deputy commissioner for the correction department in charge of staff discipline at Rikers, told Gothamist.
Jones, a Bronx resident, arrived at Rikers Island in September 2023 to serve a sentence for assault. She suffered from mental health and substance abuse problems and lost her chance for early release after getting into a fight with a corrections officer in April 2024.
“We know that she entered Department of Correction custody with a history of diagnosed mental illness, which means that right from the start she should have been exempted from all forms of solitary confinement under the law,” Kaishian, the attorney representing Jones’ family, said Tuesday.
Jones had first shown symptoms on April 28, complaining that her throat was swollen and she had hives and welts all over her body. She was examined at the jail clinic and given a Benadryl, according to the report. She was placed into medical isolation until asking to leave May 3, saying she “felt good” and was “ready to get out of here.”
Jones’ symptoms reappeared the next day, setting off the tragic chain of events that led to her death.
.
