Full power was restored to a federal detention center in Brooklyn, New York, on Sunday night after protesters stood outside the freezing cold facility for several days since prisoners were left without heat during last week's polar vortex, according to NBC News.
Protests were held outside Brooklyn’s Metropolitan Detention Center since last week as the weather dipped into the single digits, while prisoners responded to the chanting crowd by banging on their cell windows.
Attorneys in New York City filed a lawsuit against the Federal Bureau of Prisons and the warden of Brooklyn's Metropolitan Detention Center on Monday claiming the jail held inmates in "inhumane" and unconstitutional conditions last week.
The federal lawsuit was filed in the Eastern District of New York by the Federal Defenders of New York on behalf of its clients held in the facility.
The New York Times first reported the prison's troubles beginning on Jan. 5 when the site lost power.
The heating started to fail during the week of Jan. 20 and continued through last week as the dangerous polar vortex moved through New York, putting the 1,600 inmates at risk of suffering from hypothermia or frostbite.
The lawsuit says the conditions the inmates were held in were a "humanitarian crisis," while the Bureau of Prisons denied the heat was limited.
But several lawmakers who toured the facility on Saturday disagreed after they found some areas had temperatures as low as 49 degrees in the facility, criticizing the officials at the jail for not treating the situation with urgency.
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said the city's emergency-management agency delivered generators, blankets, and hand warmers to the prison on Saturday night.
The facility is a pre-trial detention center in Brooklyn's Sunset Park and can hold more than 1,600 inmates, ranging from low-level criminals to alleged terrorists.
Public defenders said they had difficulties contacting inmates inside the facility during the 35-day partial federal government shutdown due to funding and staffing shortages, so many were unaware about the fire damaging the gear switch room inside the detention center for more than a week.
A statement from the Federal Bureau of Prisons released on Sunday said the west building had "limited power in some areas," but the east building, which houses only women, was unaffected.
But the lawsuit said the bureau's characterization of the conditions inside the facility was "misleading" the public and the courts.
"For example, one BOP attorney represented to a Federal Defenders attorney on two separate occasions that he was 'informed that the power outage did not impact the heating in the institutions' ... however, the power outage following the fire had a significant impact on MDC's heating system," the suit reads.
The lawsuit also says the jail did not provide medical services to the prisoners, even though it publicly claimed to do so, while also depriving inmates of legal and family visits since Jan. 27.
"The Defendants' deprivation of MDC detainees' constitutional rights has caused and is causing irreparable harm to the Federal Defenders and its clients," the suit reads.
The U.S. Department of Justice released a statement on Monday which said it would review the situation.
"In the coming days, the Department will work with the Bureau of Prisons to examine what happened and ensure the facility has the power, heat and backup systems in place to prevent the problem from reoccurring," DOJ spokesperson Wyn Hornbuckle said in a statement.
-WN.com, Maureen Foody
Photo:
AP / Kathy Willens
