A visitor damn near made it past Rikers security on Sunday with a 12 and a half inch knife tucked into his knapsack.
Ruben Cortiez was headed into the facility to pay a visit to Joel Benavides, perhaps to say "hi" and exchange some pleasantries before handing over the cutlery, furnished with an 8-inch blade and hidden in a "secret compartment" on the side of his bag, the Daily News reports.
Cortiez waltzed through an initial screening before he was stopped outside the Otis Bantum Correction Center, though he explained that Benavides only wanted to use the knife for cooking. Benavides is currently awaiting trial for illegally possessing a loaded 9-mm. Smith & Wesson.
It's unclear how Rikers employees failed to notice the knife traveling through the x-ray machine, though it seems even they were awed by their own negligence. “I was amazed when I saw the size of the thing,” a "jail insider" told the tabloid. “How the hell did he make it through?”
A Department of Investigation report released last month revealed some serious weaknesses in the Rikers hiring process. In a review of 153 applications of those recently hired, the department found that one-third should have been disqualified, or at least scrutinized further. Ten had been arrested more than once, and 12 had previously been rejected by the New York Police Department, six of them for “psychological reasons”, among other issues.
