The possible suspect in the incident is identified as 28-year-old Dennis Fredericks, who is also known as Dennis Applewhite, according to prison sources told the New York Daily News.
A prison officer inside Rikers Island was stabbed at least 15 times by an inmate from the Bronx, prison sources said.
The possible suspect in the incident is identified as 28-year-old Dennis Fredericks, who is also known as Dennis Applewhite, according to prison sources told the New York Daily News.
Meanwhile, the officer, who has not been identified, had to be rushed to Elmhurst Hospital in serious but stable condition in what New York City Department of Correction (DOC) Commissioner Louis Molina called a “Unprovoked, heinous and insensitive attack.”
“Earlier today, while working in the protective custody unit at the Anna M. Kross Center, one of our Correctional Officers was brutally stabbed in the back of the head by an inmate approximately 15 times,” said Benevolent Association President of Correction Officers (COBA), Benny Boscio.
He added Boscio that he is with the Executive Board accompanying the officer in the hospital, and explained that he is conscious and undergoing tests, reported ABC7 NY.
“I want to thank Mayor Adams and Commissioner Molina for also visiting the officer tonight,” Boscio concluded.
Fredericks was arrested in November 2021 after allegedly fatally shooting his pregnant girlfriend in the neck, leading to a brief chase and accident.
At the time of his arrest, Fredericks was on parole after receiving a three-year sentence in 2014 for conspiracy related to a previous firearms arrest, the Daily News reported.
The stabbing occurred on the same day that a 26-year-old man who was being held at Rikers was found dead of a suspected drug overdose, marking the 18th death in the New York City prison system in 2022.