Correction Officers Rally On City Hall Steps, Say De Blasio Not Concerned About Their Safety
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- Correction officers, angry over the slashing of an officer at Rikers Island last week, rallied in front of City Hall on Monday.
Raymond Calderon was ambushed Thursday by inmates who repeatedly slashed him and nearly knocked him unconscious, authorities said. Two teenage inmates have been charged.
Calderon was among those at Monday's demonstration, WCBS 880's Alex Silverman reported.
"I could've easily been killed," he said. "I almost died."
Some held photos showing his gruesome slash wounds.
"Look at his face," said Norman Seabrook, head of the correction officers union. "He didn't sign up for this."
Seabrook said of Mayor Bill de Blasio and his effort to reform Rikers, "This is war."
The union said correction officers and their safety have been left out of the conversation.
"We will be back here again, and hopefully it won't be with a pine box in front of us because I'm going to drop the body right on the steps of City Hall because he doesn't give a (expletive) about us," Seabrook said.
Earlier Monday, de Blasio described the situation at Rikers as "still unacceptable. There's going to be a lot more done."
Last week, the mayor vowed that reforms being instituted at Rikers will continue – for instance, eliminating solitary confinement.
"Punitive segregation wasn't working," he said. "It wasn't humane -- that was the Justice Department concern, but it also wasn't working. It was making people more violent, not less violent."
The union says it wants to be a part of what is done and wants to be invited to the table to talk reforms, 1010 WINS' Sonia Rincon reported.
"We are not about making life inhumane for those who are incarcerated," Seabrook said. "But we deserve to be protected just as well as the citizens of the City of New York ."