In December, Mr. Eltahan, 41, was transferred to a nursing home in Far Rockaway. He developed sores on his body from being unable to move his limbs. Recently, he caught pneumonia and was hospitalized and placed on a ventilator again, his sister said.“His whole life is over,” Ms. Power said. “I wouldn’t wish this upon anybody.”
Reporting failures
About three weeks later, a monitor who was appointed by a federal judge to oversee reforms on Rikers Island learned about the beating of Mr. Eltahan — it was not clear how — and asked jail officials for more information, according to the person with knowledge of the case.Top jail investigators checked the agency’s records but could find no trace of the beating, the person said. The city’s Department of Investigation opened a criminal investigation into the jail system’s handling of the case. Ms. Power said investigators interviewed her brother in September.The apparent reporting failure occurred despite pledges by Department of Correction officials to do a better job of accounting for serious injuries. After the Board of Correction found major gaps in incident reporting in 2018, the city created a computerized tracking system and provided training for jail workers on how to complete injury reports.The board review also found that seriously injured detainees had to wait, on average, about two hours before receiving medical care and that many incident reports lacked basic information, such as the times the injuries occurred and the names of people who witnessed them.Mr. Eltahan’s case was still under investigation when Jose Matias was beaten on Dec. 13. The incident began when Mr. Matias, who had been on Rikers Island about a month, awaiting trial for an alleged shooting in 2019, punched another detainee he was feuding with in his housing unit, according to a person familiar with Mr. Matias’s case.No jailers were guarding the dormitory floor, and an officer had to exit an enclosed observation station to intervene. When the officer left, the other detainee threw Mr. Matias to the floor and kicked him, the person said. Other detainees broke up the fight.