Sarena Quoted in The New York Daily News

QUOTED: Sarena Townsend quoted in the New York Daily News regarding the tragic back-to-back deaths on Rikers Island of 20-year-old Ariel Quidone and an as-yet-unidentified female victim of an apparent suicide:

Sarena Townsend, a lawyer and former deputy commissioner for trials and investigations, called the spate of deaths “startling.”

“We’ve seen spikes like this in the past when leaders have either lost focus or placed the wrong people into management positions,” she said. “Here, I think the spike is related to the increase in population and the staff’s inability to manage all of the detainees. Gang activity and drug use is still rampant on the Island so the chaos on the island has not abated.

“Without proper accountability, and without managers who can handle the increase in population, deaths and constitutional violations are bound to happen,” she said.

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