On December 10, 2024, ECBAWM filed a lawsuit on behalf of the family of William Brown, a fifty-five-year-old man who died in 2021 while incarcerated on Rikers Island.

The suit alleges that corrections officers stood by and watched as Mr. Brown lay dying on the floor of the dayroom in the jail. One officer stood with her hands in her pockets observing Mr. Brown’s distress for ten minutes before she started CPR. That same officer also abandoned her post on the night of Mr. Brown’s death for over three hours and failed to supervise the unit. Mr. Brown was the 16th person in 2021 to die in the custody of the New York City Department of Corrections because of the City of New York’s shocking indifference to the lives of those incarcerated on Rikers Island.

Derrick Smith, Mr. Brown’s brother, stated, “My brother’s death was a tragedy, and the circumstances surrounding his death are very troubling. We want peace of mind and to know what happened. We aren’t giving up.”

Damien Jones, Mr. Brown’s brother and putative administrator of his estate, is represented by ECBAWM attorneys Katherine Rosenfeld and Laura Kokotailo.