A New York City Department of Corrections captain was indicted by a grand jury on Monday for allegedly watching as an inmate hanged himself with a bedsheet tied to a light fixture and ignoring pleas from officers and inmates for 15 minutes after he jumped.
Rebecca Hillman, 38, was charged with criminally negligent homicide and filing false reports, both felonies, in the suicide of 29-year-old Ryan Wilson last November at the Manhattan Detention Complex, which is also known as The Tombs. Other corrections officers testified against her during the proceeding, according to CBS New York.
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“As alleged in the indictment, the death of Ryan Wilson wasn’t just a tragedy — it was a crime,” Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance said in a statement. “Our investigation shows that Captain Hillman ordered her subordinates not to take potentially life-saving measures to help Mr. Wilson, and failed to call for medical assistance expediently.”
New York City Department of Investigations commissioner Margaret Garnett added: “The charges resulting from this investigation reveal a stunning disregard for life and Correction Department regulations, made more egregious by the fact that the defendant is a supervisor with the rank of Captain.”
Hillman is pleading not guilty to the felony charges, and her lawyer told the Washington Post that she’s “a hard-working mother and employee who did her best in a very difficult job that is defined by trauma and tragedy.”
Hillman was a captain at the Manhattan Detention Complex on November 22, 2020, when Wilson made a noose out of a bedsheet, attached it to a light fixture, and threatened to kill himself if Hillman didn’t grant him a transfer, according to Manhattan prosecutors.
Wilson had requested a transfer to a different unit after a November fight and threats of retaliation from other inmates, his lawyer, Benjamin Pinczewski, told the Washington Post.
Corrections officer Oscar Rojo had been talking to Wilson and asked for Hillman’s help, according to the New York Daily News, but she ignored the threat and instead allegedly filled out paperwork. After ten minutes, Wilson jumped off his bed and hanged himself.
Rojo was “ready to run into the cell and cut Mr. Wilson down,” Manhattan assistant district attorney Dafna Yoran said in court, but Hillman allegedly told the officer not to enter and told other inmates Wilson was “playing.” As Wilson was dying inside of his cell, Hillman “left the area to go on her usual rounds,” Vance’s office said in the release.
After 15 minutes, she allowed officers to cut Wilson down and attempt to save him, but by the time medical personnel arrived, Wilson was already dead. “He barely had a pulse, which means if they had taken any action at all, or cut him down, he would have been alive today,” Pinczewski told the Post.
Afterward, Hillman filed a report falsely claiming that she had Wilson’s cell door opened and “immediately” had him cut down.
On Monday, Wilson’s sister, Elayna Manson, told reporters following the indictment that reliving the details of his death was “heartbreaking.”
“We miss him so much,” Manson told reporters, according to the Daily News. “It’s the beginning of justice for us. There’s still lots to be done. Miss Hillman shouldn’t be working for any correction facility.”
Hillman and Rojo were both suspended for a month and then returned to active duty, but Hillman has now been suspended without pay, according to the New York Daily News. Rojo remains on active duty with no detainee contact and is not expected to fact charges, the Daily News reported.
Following Wilson’s death, his family set up a GoFundMe asking for help with his arrangements as he didn’t have life insurance. To date it’s raised $1,738, short of its $5,000 goal.
More than half of the 270 corrections officers in New York City—and at least a dozen supervisors—disciplined between January 2019 and August 2020 gave incomplete information or outright lied to investigators and in official documents, a New York Times report earlier this month found.
Suicides in New York state prison and jails have risen in recent years, with 18 inmates killing themselves in 2019 alone—88 percent higher than the average rate across the country and the highest number in New York prisons in nearly a decade—according to a May 2020 report by the #HALTSolitary campaign.
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