The Appeal: At the Center of the Coronavirus Pandemic, People Inside NYC Jails Describe Fear, Confusion and a Lack of Supplies

'They're not supplying us with masks, they’re not supplying us gloves, they're not supplying us with decent cleaning supplies.'

Michael Tyson died on Sunday at age 53. His last moments were spent in a hospital bed at Bellevue, the nation’s oldest public hospital, where he’d been moved from Rikers Island on March 26 after testing positive for COVID-19, according to the New York Times. Before coming to Rikers, he’d been locked away in the belly of The Boat—a colloquialism for the Vernon C. Bain Center, New York City’s floating jail. He had been brought there on a technical parole violation on February 28, the Daily News reported—Tyson had apparently moved house without notifying his parole officer—and was awaiting his hearing when the virus took over. The Legal Aid Society and New York Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit last week demanding the release of 100 people on parole warrants from city jails, including Tyson—but by then, it was too late.

He became the first person incarcerated in New York City to die from coronavirus, and it is a gut-wrenching certainty that he will not be the last. As of Wednesday, at least 287 people incarcerated in the city’s jails and 441 staffers have tested positive for COVID-19—and the numbers outside the walls are even more dire. view original press