Republican mayoral candidate Curtis Sliwa demanded Sunday that Mayor Bill de Blasio “spend a week on Rikers Island” — where inmates have been running amok amid staff shortages.
Sliwa delivered a letter — in a folder with “Mayor De Blasio time to visit ‘The Rock'” emblazoned on it — to a security guard outside Gracie Mansion.
“He hasn’t been to Rikers in four years, and refuses to go,” said Sliwa, who was locked up at the notorious city jail in the 1980s. “It’s total anarchy and chaos on Rikers Island. This mayor does not want to go there, to The Rock.”
De Blasio last toured the jail in June 2017.
In the letter, the Guardian Angels founder claimed de Blasio has recently been squandering his time with concerts, volleyball games and the Staten Island Yankees rather than paying attention to the mounting problems at Rikers.
“Your job as Mayor now requires that you spend a week on Rikers Island,” Sliwa wrote. “Do your job, go to Rikers Island this week, don’t be afraid. Your NYPD armed security force will protect you.
“It’s time to make Rkers [sic] safe for correctional officers and inmates.”
Curtis Sliwa delivered the letter to Gracie Mansion, telling Mayor Bill de Blasio “your job as Mayor now requires that you spend a week on Rikers Island.” FacebookThe letter includes grisly photos of a pair of wounded correction officers, who, according to Sliwa, were recently attacked by inmates at the lockup.
On Thursday, Correction Commissioner Vincent Schiraldi admitted there were “serious problems” at Rikers — hours after The Post exclusively revealed video clips showing three inmates attacking another and a group of inmates partying inside a cell.
At least 10 people locked up at Rikers have died in 2021. The latest fatality came when 24-year-old Esias Johnson, who was awaiting trial, was found unresponsive by a correction officer on Tuesday morning.
The letter included photos of a pair of wounded correction officers.
Correction officers have recently been working triple and quadruple shifts at the beleaguered jail due to lack of personnel.
In response to the staffing shortage, the city’s Department of Correction said it had hired a telemarketing firm to call recent retirees with the aim of convincing them to return to work.
Rikers is slated to close by Aug. 2027 under the mayor’s $8.7 billion plan to replace it with four smaller jails in each borough, except Staten Island.
