Howard Simmons/New York Daily News
Ramon Echevarria has filed a $ 20 million wrongful death suit against the City of New York after his son, Jason, 25, died while on Rikers Island last year. The younger Echevarria swallowed a ball of detergent containing bleach. Authorities said he was denied medical care.
A rookie Correction Department officer who was fired charges in a lawsuit that his boss told him he did not want to be “bothered” with the physical ills of inmates with mental health issues unless the inmate was “dead.”
Raymond Castro, who worked as a Correction Officer on Rikers Island before his employment was terminated, says in court papers that he told his supervisor, Captain Terrence Prendergrass, in August 2012 that an inmate had swallowed bleach and needed medical attention.
“‘Don’t call me if you have live, breathing bodies. Only call me if you need an extraction or if you have a dead body,’” Castro quotes Prendergrass as saying.
The inmate, Jason Echevarria, died later that night.
Echevarria, 25, was held on Rikers Island while awaiting trial on a burglary charge. He was being housed in a special isolation ward for mentally ill inmates when he swallowed a ball of laundry detergent with bleach.
Police originally called Echevarria’s death a suicide, but the Medical Examiner’s Office determined last December that it was a homicide because there was “a denial of medical care following the ingestion of caustic detergent,” a spokesman for the ME said Friday.
The Bronx District Attorney’s office investigated, but spokesman Steve Reed said prosecutors decided that no charges will be filed against any of the Correction Officers involved in the incident.
Ramon Echevarria, the deceased inmate’s father, has filed in federal court a $ 20 million wrongful-death lawsuit against the city.
In papers filed Thursday in Manhattan Supreme Court, Castro says he was a probationary Correction Officer doing his first tour on a 3 p.m.-to-11 p.m. shift when he discovered Echevarria in distress and requesting help. Castro says he notified his supervisor, Prendergrass, that an inmate had swallowed a soap ball and needed medical care.
He says Prendergrass told him there was “no need to contact” the jail’s medical unit and warned Castro not to call him again unless the officer was dealing with a corpse. Castro says that Prendergrass had the same negative response when he alerted him to Echevarria’s needs after he made a second visit to check on him.
About an hour later, Castro’s suit says, a pharmacy technician making rounds with another officer became alarmed at what she saw when she observed Echevarria, and Prendergrass then told the second officer to write a report.
Castro said that he then took it upon himself to call the medical unit, but as he was looking for the number, he says, Prendergrass gave him “a direct order” to refrain from making the call and to return to his post.
Castro, who started with the city Department of Correction as a probationary officer in December 2011, was fired in July 2013 for what officials described as “misconduct” in connection with the inmate’s death.
He is suing the city, claiming he was wrongfully terminated, so he can get his job back.
“We recently received the lawsuit and are in the process of reviewing the claims,” a spokesperson for the city’s Corporation Counsel said in a statement .
Joshua Kelner, the attorney for Echevarria’s father, said “it’s absolutely outrageous” that Castro was fired and that Prendergrass is still working for the city agency.
Kelner said his investigators were aware of much of what was in Castro’s lawsuit, but the statements attributed to Prendergrass stung.
“The sheer callousness can’t be other than shocking,” the lawyer said Friday.
bross@nydailynews.com
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