The Intercept
New York City is offering prisoners at Rikers Island jail $6 per hour — a fortune by prison labor standards — and personal protective equipment if they agree to help dig mass graves on Hart Island, according to sources with knowledge of the offer. Avery Cohen, a spokesperson for the office of
Mayor Bill de Blasio confirmed the general arrangement, but said that it was not “Covid-specific,” noting that prisoners have been digging graves on Hart Island for years.
The offer is only being made to those with convictions, not those jailed before trial, as is generally the case. A memo sent to prisoners, according to a source who reviewed it, does not specify what the work on Hart Island will be, but the reference to PPE leaves little doubt. The offer comes as New York City continues to be the epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic in the United States, with 38,000 people infected and more than 914 dead so far. New York City owns and operates a public cemetery on Hart Island, which has long been maintained by prison labor. The island was identified as a potential resting place for a surge of bodies in the event of a pandemic by a 2008 report put together by the NYC Office of Chief Medical Examiner.
Hart Island, though, “has limited burial space,” the report noted, and “may not be able to accommodate a large influx of decedents requiring burial,” which the preparedness plan estimated at between 50,000 and 200,000 in a pandemic with a mortality rate of 2 percent in which 25 to 35 percent of the population is infected.
The city document proposed employing the Department of Defense’s “temporary mass internment method,” which places caskets 10 in a row, head to foot, so as not to stack them on top of each other. Hart Island is located off City Island in the Bronx. In 2008, Rikers prisoners were burying roughly 20 to 25 bodies per week there, the report found.
14 comments:
This is one news... Rikers Prisoners have always dug the graves at Hart’s Island and the graves there are always mass graves. It’s the city’s Potters Field for unclaimed remains
Bullshit!!
The media tells story's, especially of mass graves being dug.
I'm on City Island (Hawkins street)I can see the dock and Hart Island from my porch.
So far NOTHING has been going at Hart Island, not even the weekly truck and Rikers crews.
Only things recent are small triangle red marker flags that were placed last year where bones are coming up due to beach erosion.
So far no mass graves, no action of any kind on Hart Island!!
Why is the TV media cranking up such bullshit, is viewership that bad they need to tell lies to keep peoples hands of the remote controls and computer cursers?
Maybe Jim Acosta can tell us the truth about this story on CNN.
Oh forgot Jim Acosta is not a journalist he’s a political heckler. #FAKENEWS
How are the bones coming up,aren't they in box's and why doesn't the city invest in a creamator,is it in case someone decides to claims uncle Bozos remaines?
The prison industrial complex will never end its wage slavery
"How are the bones coming up,aren't they in box's"
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Lemmie try to s'plain what I think is happening I'm just a boat mechanic
The pine boxes are long disintegrated, breakwater rocks that once protected the bluffs have been long displaced by hurricane's so the waves wear away the 5 feet high or so bluffs and the bones spill out down to the beach.
That Island is very flat, almost like a sandbar.
These are the graves on the west end of the island, acres of bones all over the west end beach you cant even walk without hearing "crunch" below you feet every 3rd or so step.. Sometimes the birds pick up the bones still with pieces of clothing, leather shoes attached carry the 1000 feet or so and drop them on people on the City Island beaches. It scares the shit out of folks.
The amount of neglect & disgrace going on at Heart Island and North Brother Islands is unbelievable!!
I rather be excremated then be buried on that rock of horror
Where is the media on these facts?
I hate to say it, but $6 an hour for a prison job is not bad. I think it should be the nationwide minimum for prison jobs.
"I think it should be the nationwide minimum for prison jobs"
I think that's a very Bad Idea at this time.
Spenging money you don't have is not a very smart thing to do.
N.Y.C. and NYS are out of money. Layoffs, Service Cuts and Fare increases are coming soon.
Better to have them digging graves than turning them loose like DeBlaz has been doing
Thanx for the explanation
Great Idea Mayor !
NYC to begin temporarily burying coronavirus victims in local parks !
I just read that the city medical examiner’s office came up with a plan to deal with a pandemic in 2008. Tier 1 involves storing bodies in freezer trucks and easing restrictions on crematories, but the city is running out of freezer capacity for deceased COVID victims. Tier 2 involves temporary burials.
Councilman Mark Levine (Upper West Side Manhattan) tweeted "Soon we'll start “temporary interment”. This likely will be done by using a NYC park for burials (yes you read that right). Trenches will be dug for 10 caskets in a line. It will be done in a dignified, orderly--and temporary--manner. But it will be tough for NYers to take."
Especially if you live in Queens. How much you wanna bet they're eying Flushing Meadows–Corona Park, and I'm not talking about the part that the USTA or the NY Mets occupies? No way they'll do this in Central Park. And how "temporary" will "temporary" really be?
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/06/nyregion/coronavirus-new-york-update.html?action=click&module=Spotlight&pgtype=Homepage#link-57349898
UPDATE:
What's was one truck a week is now over 9 trips since yesterday afternoon that ran to dusk. Today a steady stream of Large 22 foot box trucks not including the buses of workers.
Imagine Monday mornings with soiled diapers and dead bodies piled side by side,yea try blaming that smell on Flushing Creek?
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