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 BROOKLYN WEEKLY, APRIL 5, 2020 
 ‘IT’S BASICALLY TORTURE’ 
 Coronavirus case at ICE detention center stokes fear 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
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 BY ROSE ADAMS 
 Jessica was at home in  
 Brooklyn one February  
 morning when a group of immigration  
 agents knocked  
 on her door, claiming they  
 were looking for a man by  
 an unfamiliar name. At  
 fi rst, she didn’t realize they  
 worked for US Immigration  
 and Customs Enforcement. 
 “They had ‘ICE’ written  
 on their shoulder, but they  
 were covering it. It just said  
 ‘Police,'” said Jessica, who  
 declined  to  give  her  last  
 name out of fear of reprisal.  
 Unable to fi nd their suspect, 
  the offi cers left. But  
 hours later, they turned  
 up at the workplace of Jessica’s  
 partner — a native of  
 Mexico — and took him into  
 their custody. 
 “They went to his job and  
 picked  him  up,”  said  Jessica, 
  who was pregnant at  
 the time. “They came on the  
 phone and said, ‘He’ll call  
 you when he can.’”  
 Offi cials fi rst placed Jessica’s  
 partner in a New York  
  
  
  
  
 City immigration facility  
 before moving  him  to  New  
 Jersey’s Essex County Correctional  
 Facility. On March  
 4, he was moved again to the  
 Bergen County Jail  in New  
 Jersey — about a week after  
 his and Jessica’s baby was  
 born. 
 Then, coronavirus began  
 to spread. 
 On March 23, an inmate  
 at  the  Bergen  County  Jail  
 tested positive for the novel  
 coronavirus, prompting offi - 
 cials to lockdown the facility  
 and place 15 of the jail’s 450- 
 plus inmates in quarantine.  
 Following public outcry,  
 a Manhattan judge ordered  
 on Thursday that 10 inmates  
 with underlying health conditions  
 be released from various  
 New Jersey jails, including  
 from Bergen County. 
 However, family members  
 like  Jessica  fear  that  
 the facility’s poor conditions  
 will allow the disease to  
 spread like wildfi re, despite  
 the recent precautions. 
 “The place is basically  
 torture.  It’s  dirty,  
 fi lthy,”  said  Jessica,  adding  
 that the jail has grown  
 so  crowded  that  offi cials  
 have relocated inmates to  
 a  facility  previously  used  
 for solitary confi nement.  
 “The cells they have them  
 in are made for one person,  
 but they have two people  
 in them.” 
 Relatives of other inmates  
 echoed Jessica’s worries, 
  and added that authorities  
 often don’t give inmates  
 their full medications on  
 time, increasing their vulnerability  
 to the virus.  
 “There are people in  
 there that suffer from high  
 blood pressure and asthma,  
 and they’re not receiving  
 their full medication,” said  
 Maria, whose family member  
 is being held at the Hudson  
 County Correctional  
 Facility. “They’re in grave  
 danger.” 
 Correctional offi cers  
 have also allowed misinformation  
 to run rampant in  
 the jail, Jessica said, sparking  
 fear among the inmates,  
 who relate the rumors to  
 their families over phone  
 calls. 
 “I don’t know if the correctional  
 offi cers are bullying  
 them, but they said that  
 there are 50 cases of coronavirus  
 in the jail,” Jessica  
 said. “He called me. He was  
 crying.” 
 In protest of the conditions, 
  dozens of detainees  
 across all four New Jersey  
 detention centers have begun  
 a hunger strike, activists  
 say.  On  Friday,  protesters  
 drove to the Bergen  
 County Jail to stand in solidarity  
 with the strikers and  
 demand that New Jersey  
 Governor  Phil  Murphy  release  
 the 1,500 inmates in  
 ICE’s custody. 
 Spokespeople for ICE  
 and for the Bergen County  
 Jail did not immediately respond  
 to requests for comment. 
 “They  don’t  have  gloves  
 or masks or anything —  
 they don’t have the necessary  
 equipment to protect  
 themselves,” said Victoria  
 Ramirez, whose partner is  
 also being detained in Bergen  
 county. “They have to  
 spend time with their family  
 in these conditions.” 
 Coronavirus cases among ICE detainees sparked concern over the conditions in detention centers.  
   REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson 
 BY KEVIN DUGGAN 
 An 86-year-old woman died  
 at Woodhull  Hospital  on March  
 28 after a 32-year-old fellow patient  
 allegedly shoved her to the  
 ground for not practicing social  
 distancing. 
 The victim was walking in the  
 emergency room of the city-run  
 medical facility on the Bedford- 
 Stuyvesant-Bushwick border  
 just after 2 pm when, authorities  
 say, she stopped and held onto the  
 younger woman’s intravenous  
 pole. 
 The alleged assailant got mad  
 at the victim because she wasn’t  
 keeping a safe distance to prevent  
 the spread of the coronavirus, a  
 spokesman for the Police Department  
 said. The younger woman  
 then pushed the older woman to  
 the ground, causing her to knock  
 her head and lose consciousness. 
 Hospital  police  escorted  the  
 younger woman off of the hospital  
 premises and released her.  
 The victim was pronounced dead  
 just before 5:40 pm and police are  
 now looking for the suspect on felony  
 assault charges, the spokesman  
 said. 
 The charges could be upgraded  
 to homicide, depending on  
 the autopsy by the city’s Medical  
 Examiner, according to the police  
 spokesman. 
 A spokeswoman for the Medical  
 Examiner’s offi ce did not immediately  
 return a request  
 for comment. 
 Neither of the women  
 were  in  the  hospital  for  
 treatment related to  
 COVID-19, according to  
 the police spokesman,  
 who said that the victim  
 was in the healthcare  
 facility for bowel obstruction  
 and her alleged  
 attacker for seizure treatment. 
 An  86-year-old  woman  died  after  a  fellow  patient  
 at Woodhull Hospital knocked her out on  
 March 28.   Photo by Google 
 Woman kills 86-year-old over failure to socially distance