A Justice Department lawyer gave a detailed assessment of the situation at Rikers Island and other city lockups during a hearing in Manhattan Federal Court but stopped well short of proposing a federal takeover of the jail system.
Vaughn Grinnage, an assistant deputy warden, has been named head of the Emergency Services Unit, which has 200 members who work to quell disturbances and conduct special search operations. Grinnage was accused in a civil suit in a 2012 beating of teenager Kalief Browder, who spent three years at Rikers because his family could not make $3,000 bail on a charge that he stole another teen’s backpack.