A man being held at the Rikers Island jail complex died on Wednesday night after suffering an apparent seizure, at least the fifth person to die in New York City custody in the past two weeks, according to city officials.
The Department of Correction said that officers had received a report of an inmate experiencing “what appeared to be a seizure” at the jail’s George R. Vierno Center on Wednesday night. Doctors and emergency medical workers arrived and tried to revive the man, but were unsuccessful, the agency said.
The man, whose name was not released by the authorities, was pronounced dead just after 8:30 p.m.
The Department of Correction, in a brief statement on Thursday, said that “every aspect” of the death would be investigated.
The spate of deaths of people in city custody in recent weeks has prompted criticism from legal and advocacy groups that say the city is not doing enough to ensure the safety of its detainees. The man who died on Wednesday was at least the third person to die on Rikers Island since Aug. 23. Two others — most recently a Turkish pedicab driver — have died in police custody since that date.
The pedicab driver, Musa Cetin, 29, was found unconscious on Friday evening in a holding cell at the Midtown South Precinct station house at 357 West 35th Street. The city medical examiner’s office said Wednesday evening that Mr. Cetin’s death was a suicide and that he had hanged himself.
The Police Department said Mr. Cetin, who lived in Brooklyn, had been taken into custody because his pedicab lacked a registration sticker. He also had an outstanding warrant for a similar traffic violation, the department said.
The police said Mr. Cetin was lodged in the cell at 8:05 p.m. and that officers checked on him at 8:19 p.m. Fourteen minutes later, he was found unresponsive in the cell, and lifesaving measures were begun immediately, the police said.
Mr. Cetin was rushed by ambulance to Bellevue Hospital in critical condition, and was pronounced dead on Sunday, the department said.
The unidentified Rikers detainee who died on Wednesday is at least the 15th person to die this year while in city custody or shortly after being released, according to the Legal Aid Society.
On Saturday, another man, Jimmy Avila, died at Rikers after being held for less than 24 hours. The Correction Department did not provide the circumstances of Mr. Avila’s death, but Legal Aid, which had been representing him, said he had struggled with serious mental health issues and that he should have been kept under close watch.
One week earlier, another detainee, Ardit Billa, 29, died after being found unresponsive in his cell in the middle of the night. The Correction Department days later said that it had suspended three staff members, though it did not provide further information about why the employees had been put on leave.
The deaths come as the city struggles to maintain control of the troubled jail complex, which has been plagued by violence, dysfunction and a growing number of deaths in custody. In May, a federal judge ordered that an outside official be appointed to oversee operations on Rikers.
In a statement on Thursday, Tina Luongo, the chief attorney of the criminal defense practice at Legal Aid, called the deaths in city custody “a devastating result of a system that continues to fail in its most basic duty: to protect those in its charge.”
“We have seen absolutely no indication from City Hall of any plan to address this crisis,” Ms. Luongo said.
Miles G. Cohen contributed reporting.
Maia Coleman is a reporter for The Times covering the New York Police Department and criminal justice in the New York area.
Benjamin Weiser is a Times reporter covering the federal courts and U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan, and the justice system more broadly.
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