According to two city officials, the mentally ill Riker’s Island inmate who hanged himself on New Year’s Day was supposed to be on suicide watch—but it was never implemented. A jail psychiatrist had ordered that Fabian Cruz, 35, be transferred to a special observation unit in a different facility, but a guard transferred Cruz back to his cell after the inmate told him he didn’t want to go. Letting Cruz go was a violation of Department of Correction protocol; inmates don’t get to decide where they’re housed. The guard also did not notify a supervising captain about the psychiatrist’s suicide watch order.
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