Two more detainees died while in the custody of the city over the last week — adding to an alarming trend that also saw a Rikers Island inmate found dead, cops and sources said.
Musa Cetin, 29 – a pedicab driver in custody for operating without a license, according to online court records – was discovered unconscious and unresponsive inside a cell at the Midtown South NYPD headquarters on West 35th Street near Ninth Avenue at 8:33 p.m. Friday, cops said.
He appeared to have hanged himself with a jacket, law enforcement sources said.
Just 14 minutes earlier, at 8:19 p.m., precinct cops had checked on Cetin as part of their “standard checks” but found nothing amiss, the sources said.
Police officers and EMS workers “performed life-saving measures,” but Cetin was rushed to Bellevue Hospital, where he succumbed to his injuries two days later, authorities said.
His death is under investigation by the NYPD’s Force Investigation Division.
Meanwhile, around 10:15 p.m. Friday, Christopher Nieves, 46, was found unconscious and unresponsive inside a holding cell at Kings County Criminal Court on Schermerhorn Street near State Street in downtown Brooklyn, cops said.
He was pronounced dead at the scene by responding EMS workers.
Nieves appeared to have suffered a heart attack, according to law enforcement sources.
His official cause and manner of death will be determined by the city medical examiner’s office, and the department’s Force Investigation Division is probing the case.
Nieves was in custody for stealing food from a Whole Foods on Bedford Avenue in Williamsburg a day earlier, police said.
News of the two deaths comes after 44-year-old Jimmy Avila died in custody inside Rikers Island’s West Facility around 4:30 p.m. Saturday, officials said.
Avila was accused of shooting three people, killing his building’s superintendent, Ryan Hines, 37 – in a rage-fueled Wednesday rampage over a shared backyard in the Bronx, according to sources and neighbors.
“Our hearts are heavy with the loss of an individual in our care,” DOC Commissioner Lynelle Maginley-Liddie said in a statement.
“We mourn his passing and extend our sympathies to his loved ones. We will thoroughly investigate the circumstances of this tragic event.”
The circumstances of Avila’s death were “pending further study” following an autopsy on Sunday, according to the city medical examiner’s office.
The Legal Aid Society, which represented Avila in the murder case, said their client suffered from “serious mental health issues” and that “given his condition, this should have been immediately flagged at intake, and he should have been under DOC’s close watch.”
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