‘I Just Want to Be Normal’: A Mentally Ill Man’s Death at Rikers

Esias Johnson had been in and out of Rikers Island during his two years in New York. A captain and two correction officers have been suspended in connection with his death.

When Esias Johnson moved to New York from his hometown in 2019, chasing dreams of musical stardom, his parents were terrified.

Mr. Johnson, then 21, had been diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome as a child and suffered from mental illness for much of his young life, failing to fit in and eventually getting into trouble with the law. His family feared that a city full of strangers who could not understand his struggles might swallow him.

But what happened was far worse than what they had imagined.