By Andy Newman, Jan Ransom and Chelsia Rose Marcius
On Nov. 11, a 51-year-old man experiencing homelessness named Ramon Rivera, who faced charges for stealing a $1,500 acrylic bowl from an upscale furniture outlet in Manhattan, had a court-mandated meeting arranged with his case manager.
However, he failed to attend, according to two individuals knowledgeable about the situation.
A week later, Rivera allegedly went on a violent spree, stabbing three people to death while moving through Manhattan, officials claim. He was indicted on three counts of first-degree murder on Friday.
Rivera’s evident plunge into violent behavior highlights the challenges faced by the medical and legal frameworks in monitoring some of the city’s most unstable individuals and ensuring their access to necessary care.
Rivera, who has a significant, albeit modest, criminal background and is documented as suffering from schizophrenia, was participating in a court program termed “supervised release,” aimed solely at ensuring that a defendant appears in court. He was obligated to engage in two face-to-face sessions with a case manager, complete two phone check-ins, and attend therapy in the initial month. This schedule was among the most stringent within the supervised release framework.
After his release from jail last month, having served nine months for theft, he was directed to the city’s homeless shelter network. In the upcoming month, he only spent three nights in a shelter, as reported by an informed source regarding his social service history.
Prior to coming to New York last year, Rivera, originally from Puerto Rico, had resided in Florida and Ohio, accumulating a criminal history that included at least two assault charges, one resulting in a 28-day hospitalization in a psychiatric facility.
His latest incarceration at Rikers Island in New York City was interrupted by two stays in the psychiatric unit of the Bellevue Hospital prison ward, during which he attacked a correction officer, according to court documents and Correction Department records.
When he pleaded guilty to the assault in September, his attorney informed the judge that Rivera was only partially coherent.
On Wednesday, 11 legislators from federal, state, and city levels, including U.S. Representative Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., who represent the areas where the homicides took place, contacted the leaders of several city agencies demanding accountability.
“What information was shared among the Department of Correction, Health + Hospitals, and the Department of Homeless Services regarding Mr. Rivera’s release from Rikers Island?” they questioned, labeling Rivera’s situation “a severe indictment of the shortcomings within the criminal justice and mental health systems in New York City.”
Even though the office of New York Mayor Eric Adams has lowered the criteria for involuntary hospitalization during psychiatric crises, an individual with grave mental illness cannot be confined indefinitely once stabilized. An investigation by The New York Times last year revealed that hospitals frequently discharged patients prior to full stabilization or without adequate discharge plans.
Under Adams’ leadership, the city has deployed officers and nurses into subway systems to seek out individuals in mental distress. It has funded thousands of “supportive housing” units, complete with on-site social services for chronically homeless individuals battling mental illness and addiction.
The publicly available information about Rivera paints a grim picture.
It encompasses nearly twenty criminal charges, alongside a range of traffic violations. Court records from Florida dating back to the early 2000s reveal citations for battery, “unknowingly” driving with a suspended license, and tendering an undercover officer posing as a sex worker $40 for sexual favors.
On Oct. 18, the day subsequent to his jail release, Rivera was arraigned in Manhattan for the theft of the bowl. Since this was a misdemeanor, he could not be held on bail, but a prosecutor sought supervised release.
A representative from the nonprofit Center for Alternative Sentencing and Employment Services, known as CASES, proposed to place Rivera under one of its most stringent levels of supervision.
With recent bail-reform legislation in New York, the supervised release framework, which started in 2016, has been broadened to include all defendants with pending criminal cases, thereby encompassing an increasing number of individuals with severe mental illness requiring more substantial care than supervised release was originally intended to provide. This year, the city initiated a pilot program to experiment with an additional component of the supervised release program to lower rearrests and address those with higher needs.
Rivera participated in a CASES intake session following his arraignment, according to two individuals acquainted with the situation. He met with a CASES worker in person on Oct. 28 and again a week later, but he missed a third meeting scheduled for Nov. 11, they confirmed.
When a client becomes unreachable, CASES typically performs a “diligent search,” reaching out to friends and family and visiting locations the individual frequents. If the client remains untraceable, CASES is obligated to inform the court within 21 days or at the next scheduled court date, whichever comes first. For Rivera, that would have been Dec. 2. A spokesperson for CASES declined to provide comments.
In October, when Rivera departed from jail, he was directed to an evaluation shelter, where after several days or weeks, he could be placed in a facility catering to individuals with mental health issues and addiction. However, he only spent three nights in a Brooklyn assessment shelter and then exited the system, an individual familiar with his social service records stated.
Early Monday morning, a surveillance camera recorded Rivera donning a sweatshirt and a trench coat while concealing two knives in his sweatshirt pocket. On West 19th Street near 10th Avenue in Chelsea, he approached a construction worker, Angel Lata Landi, fatally stabbed him in the abdomen, and walked away, according to police reports.
A 67-year-old man fishing in the East River near 30th Street was also stabbed to death by Rivera, police reported. Twelve blocks to the north, after Rivera murdered a 36-year-old woman close to the United Nations, federal agents detained him and handed him over to the police.
