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Advocates for COs defend punitive segregation for violent inmates

The head of the NY Correction Officers’ Benevolent Association railed at escalating jail attacks

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By Ellen Moynihan and Cathy Burke
New York Daily News

NEW YORK CITY — The union representing Department of Correction officers, and city and state officials on Sunday lashed out at City Hall support for ending punitive segregation in city jails, citing increasing violence against guards.

Citing a Daily News report of an inmate’s attack on a Rikers Island correction officer and a June 27 letter from Council Speaker Corey Johnson urging the city’s Board of Correction to end solitary confinement, the head of the Correction Officers’ Benevolent Association railed at escalating jail attacks.

“The policymakers that work in City Hall … and the offices behind us continue to strip corrections officers of the essential tools we need,” union president Elias Husamudeen said in front of City Hall.

Husamudeen said violence at the city jails has been on the rise for the past five years, saying the “facts are as clear as crystal” and “reflected in the Mayor’s report that he puts out every year.” He called ending punitive segregation “reform that will make us the victim.”

“City Hall needs to wake up and stop treating prisoners as a social experiment,” said council member Robert Holden (D-Queens).

Councilmember Joe Borelli lashed out at “progressive activists” on the Council, saying: “They just plain lie. These activists have been ‘woke’ for so long that now that most of them are in government they don’t even realize they’re asleep at the wheel.”

The head of the Westchester correction officers’ union, Neil Pellone, said people think punitive segregation is like “‘The Green Mile’ or ‘Malcolm X,’ where you throw a piece of cornbread in and you close the shutter on people. It’s not like that at all.”

And retired NYPD Lt. Mike Reilly, now a member of the state Assembly, blasted Corey, Gov. Cuomo and Mayor de Blasio for fueling misconceptions.

“That’s why we’re here today — because we’re losing the battle of sanity to insanity,” he said.

©2019 New York Daily News

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