On Friday, October 23, students, activists, revolutionaries, and faith leaders will gather at the Queens entrance to Rikers Island to rally and conduct nonviolent direct action to Shut Down Rikers Island.  This nonviolent direct action comes as anger over the abuse and torture of prisoners by Rikers Island guards and staff has reached a boiling point and is part of a larger three days of action called #RiseUpOctober.

Sunsara Taylor, one of the organizers of the event, says, “The lawsuits have been filed, the settlements for abuse and wrongful death have been paid out, exposures in the press have been done, yet the brutality and torture by the guards continues.  It is time that we put our bodies on the line to stop these crimes.  Rikers Island must be shut down!”  Protesters will carry enlargements of the faces of people who have been killed by guard brutality or medical neglect on Rikers Island, including Bradley Ballard, Jason Eschevarria, Jerome Murdough, Ronald Spear and others.  They will also carry the face of Kalief Browder who was arrested at age 16, held for three years (two of them in solitary confinement) and finally released for lack of evidence.  On June 6th this year, Kalief Browder committed suicide, stemming from the traumas and depression induced by his time in Rikers.

Since 1990, the city has settled six class action suits filed against Rikers due to rampant brutality and gross violations prisoners’ rights. The most recent (2015) class action suit found a culture of “deep-seated violence,” resulting in a “staggering” number of injuries, where “adolescents are at a constant risk of physical harm.”

Rev. Willie Francois of the First Corinthian Baptist Church in Harlem, Rev. Jerome McCorry and his wife Candace McCorry from Dayton, Ohio, Carl Dix of the Revolutionary Communist Party and a co-initiator of #RiseUpOctober, Sunsara Taylor of Revolution Newspaper, Rev. Stephen Phelps, students from Columbia University and others will be taking part in the nonviolent direct action near the entrance to the only road onto Rikers Island.  More clergy, students, and others will be joining them to bear witness.

This protest is part of three days of action initiated by Carl Dix and Cornel West – co-founders of the Stop Mass Incarceration Network – called Rise Up October, to STOP Police Terror: