Dear friends,
I’ve been resting, which I would enjoy more if I knew when I could stop resting and do something. The good thing about writing is that I can do it a little bit at a time.
I had had an idea about a Bastille Day post for which I only wrote a few sentences. I’m not going to try to overstretch the connection between the rolling crisis at Rikers Island and the storming of the Bastille (233 years and 11 days ago), but I will point out that the Parisian prison became a symbol of royal abuse of power, especially as people were held without trial.
More than 80 percent of the people incarcerated at Rikers are awaiting trial and cannot make bail.
The Bastille was not overcrowded. Prisoners were not dying behind its walls.
Two men in their 30s, Michael Lopez and Elijah Muhammad, died at Rikers last week. Lopez was in a locked mental observation unit before he was found unconscious. Muhammad had been in isolation and already showed signs of rigor mortis when he was found.
In May, federal judge Laura Swain acknowledged that “people are dying” at Rikers, but did not turn the troubled jails over to federal receivership. Instead, she ordered the mayor and DOC Commissioner Louis Molina to provide a plan by June 10 to reduce violence, improve the delivery of medical care, and address the understaffing.
Read the story about Dashawn Carter’s death at Rikers in May.
Later in June, the federal monitor filed a report indicating that
“the overall situation in the jails remains chaotic and incidents involving serious harm and tragic fatalities are all too frequent.”
In addition, the monitor rejected the administration’s plan to create a new housing unit, a supposedly “more humane replacement for solitary confinement to isolate dangerous inmates at the city’s jails.” The monitor was skeptical that the unit would be safe, especially in light of staffing shortages.
On July 12, a corrections officer, Gianna Abreu, was denied medical care for hours when her blood pressure spiked while she was on duty. She eventually passed out and another CO called EMS. The conditions on Rikers Island are also a labor issue.
Eleven people have died at Rikers this year.
Adams and Molina vociferously oppose losing control of the facility, saying they are implementing an “action plan” that will make incarcerated people and officers safer in the coming months.
Last Thursday, as Eric Adams addressed the UN to commemorate Nelson Mandela International Day, the Jails Action Coalition held a silent protest outside the UN. There was also a protest outside City Hall.
I wrote extensively and repeatedly on this issue in 2021, and we pestered the old mayor, the new president, and the old and new governors. I have been at a loss how best to address the unacceptable situation at Rikers Island. The answer, I believe, is for Adams to seek and accept federal help.
Repeatedly, Mayor Adams has called on the federal government for assistance to address a wide array of problems, including fighting crime and reducing gun violence and, more recently, to assist with resources for asylum seekers.
Call on Mayor Adams to ask for federal control of city jails to address the problems that plague the system. This will take 30 seconds.
Call on Public Advocate Jumaane Williams to encourage the mayor to seek federal guidance. Another fast ready-made action!
We’ve been fighting for a cryptomining moratorium here in NYS. The danger of cryptomining is even more serious in Texas, where the state’s electric grid cannot receive power in an emergency from other states. The heat in Texas has been record-breaking.
The energy crypto miners use puts “an almost unprecedented burden” on the Texas grid, according to Ben Hertz-Shargel, global head of Grid Edge, a unit of Wood Mackenzie, an energy consulting firm. Mining “pushes the system closer to dangerous system peaks at all times,” he told NBC News. “It is completely inessential and consuming physical resources, time and money that should be going to decarbonize and strengthen the grid.”
The Texas grid has come under pressure before. During winter storm Uri in February 2021, for example, demand for power exceeded supply; over 200 people died, most from hypothermia.
Because of their high demand for electricity, crypto miners raise costs for other consumers of power, Hertz-Shargel said. And, on the Texas grid, miners can get paid for powering down during peak demand periods, like the one that recently hit the state. Miners and other industrial customers with these types of arrangements receive revenues for not using electricity; the costs of those revenues are passed on to other electricity customers.
A woman named Jackie Sawicky has begun to organize against a new crypto mining facility that will use 1.4 million gallons of water and 1 gigawatt of electricity each day. Sawicky points out that there are thousands of people living on fixed incomes and low incomes who cannot afford to pay more for water and electricity.
Sign Sawicky’s petition to oppose the Riot Blockchain Mine in Navarro, County, TX. Pass it on to friends and family in Texas!
Because cryptomining is both inessential and energy-intensive, it is hard to understand why Governor Hochul has still not signed the cryptomining moratorium that the NYS legislature passed. It seems we have until the end of the year to get her to sign the legislation.
Sign this petition from EarthJustice to urge the governor to sign the moratorium. It takes just 15 seconds!
Stay cool and stay masked indoors!
with love,
L