A New York City jail captain has been convicted of criminally negligent homicide for waiting to intervene as a man was dying in his cell at the Manhattan Detention Complex in November 2020. Rebecca Hillman, 40, could spend up to four years in prison.
The Manhattan district attorney’s office argued during trial that Hillman filled out non-essential paperwork, made her normal rounds and chatted with people instead of immediately responding when Ryan Wilson, 29, was threatening to kill himself and then took steps to end his life. They also said she ordered staff not to open Wilson’s cell door right away and waited another 10 minutes to call for medical workers after finding him hanging from a light fixture.
“This is a case about duties and failures,” Assistant District Attorney Matthew Sears said during opening statements. “She failed to appreciate the substantial and unjustifiable risk of his death.”
Hillman testified at trial that she thought Wilson was “making a joke,” because she saw him breathing and thought that his feet were on the ground. The captain also said that she had returned to her normal duties just weeks earlier, following an extended medical leave and months of desk duty. She said she was grieving the murder of a close friend, whom she called her sister.
“I was really emotional that day, because I was missing her,” Hillman said. She said she cried in the shower before coming to work.
In a statement, the Department of Correction said the captain’s actions “were completely unacceptable.”
“We remain committed to improving our jails with transparency and accountability, and will pursue termination immediately,” Commissioner Louis Molina said.
The Correction Captains’ Association could not immediately be reached for comment.
“Ms. Hillman regrets any role that she played in the unfortunate passing of Mr. Wilson and sends deep sympathies to his loved ones,” her attorney, Todd Spodek, said in a statement, adding that he is “pleased” that the jury found her not guilty of lying about what happened on official paperwork. “We maintain the position that a number of events with the DOC led to Mr. Wilson’s suicide.”
Correction officers rarely face criminal charges for deaths in custody. The state attorney general’s office has not brought criminal charges in any of the 34 deaths reported in city jails since it started investigating all such cases in 2021, though probes are still ongoing in some of those cases.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said in an interview with Gothamist that the verdict “underscores the importance of public safety” and “human dignity” within jails and prisons. Bragg said he hopes Hillman’s conviction will serve as a deterrent, to prevent more deaths behind bars.
“This case was about the particular facts presented to the jury and the individual culpability of Hillman. That does not mean that we should not have a broader conversation,” he said. “We should be looking at and thinking about what happened in here and ask how this could happen.”
Jocelyn Strauber, the commissioner of the city’s Department of Investigation, which investigated the case, called Hillman’s decision to delay life-saving treatment “callous.”
“Today’s conviction makes clear that we will vigorously pursue DOC employees of any rank who are responsible for the death of a person in custody in their care,” Strauber said in a statement.
A ‘dysfunctional’ system
On Nov. 22, 2020, Capt. Hillman was supervising six units in the Manhattan Detention Complex, including the one where Wilson was housed. Hillman testified in court that she was planning to move Wilson to another unit, because he’d gotten into an argument with someone else in detention. She said he didn’t seem upset at the time and that she didn’t think the decision would cause any sort of emergency.
But the DA’s office argued that the decision to move Wilson led him to threaten to kill himself in front of another correction officer. Prosecutors said that the officer called Hillman and asked her to come right away, but that she didn’t. When Wilson proceeded with his plan, they said, Hillman still didn’t come immediately. And once she arrived, she initially waited to call for doctors and said that Wilson was “playing.”
The captain said several multiple times during trial that she didn’t realize something urgent was happening within Wilson’s cell. She said people in detention tell her on a regular basis that they are going to kill themselves so that she’ll help them — not because they actually plan to harm themselves.
Hillman also said that she never received suicide prevention training. Prosecutors disputed that while cross-examining her, saying they had found records stating that she had attended multiple courses.
Hillman said that department training records aren’t always accurate. Less than 20% of correction officers took a mandatory suicide prevention class between Sept. 1, 2021 and Sept. 20, 2022, Gothamist reported last year.
Hillman’s trial painted a picture of a chaotic housing unit within the Manhattan jail — which is currently empty while the city builds a new facility — just next door to the courthouse where she took the stand. The captain detailed a long list of tasks she had to complete before the end of her shift, pulling her attention away from the situation with Wilson. She also described the breakdowns in technology within city jails that make it difficult to communicate with other employees or work efficiently, including the department’s reliance on paper records and landline telephones.
“The Department of Correction is dysfunctional,” Hillman’s attorney said during opening arguments..
Deaths in city custody — or just after release — are on the rise. Last year, 19 people died on Rikers Island or at local hospitals, marking the highest rate of jail deaths since 1996. Advocates have urged the federal government to take over the city’s jail system, but Mayor Eric Adams and Molina, the correction commissioner, have resisted calls for more oversight. A judge ruled last fall to keep the department in local hands for now.
Hillman has been on modified duty at the Anna M. Kross Center on Rikers Island after serving the maximum amount of time on suspension. She is expected to be sentenced next month.
If someone you know exhibits warning signs of suicide: do not leave the person alone; remove any firearms, alcohol, drugs or sharp objects that could be used in a suicide attempt; call or text 988 or chat at 988lifeline.org; take the person to an emergency room; or seek help from a medical or mental health professional.
This story has been updated. Matt Katz contributed reporting.
