Jailers Bar Family From Seeing Teen Who Tried Suicide: Lawyers

Update: The Department of Corrections cancelled the parole warrant against Nicholas Feliciano shortly after this story was published, according to the Legal Aid Society.

NEW YORK CITY — Family of the teen who tried to hang himself at Rikers Island — as guards watched for more than seven minutes without responding — have been barred from visiting the hospitalized boy who is now on life support, attorneys said.

Department of Corrections officers guarding Nicholas Feliciano, 18, have refused to let the critically injured boy's family sit with him in Elmhurst Hospital beyond the jail's strict visiting hours, according to the Legal Aid Society.

Legal Aid Society, the nonprofit attorney group representing Feliciano, sent a letter to DOC officials Wednesday asking the teen's family be allowed to sit with the unconscious teen.

"This is unacceptable," the letter reads. "He poses no security risk, and needs his family at his bedside at this critical time."

According to the letter, the family has been made to wait long periods of time for clearance and DOC officials refused to let them in outside of official visiting hours or days, bring possessions into Feliciano's room, or photograph him.

Feliciano was put into a medically-induced coma Tuesday after at least four corrections officers at the notorious jail failed to respond to his suicide attempt, according to a New York Times report.

The officers were suspended and the city’s Department of Investigation is conducting an inquiry, officials told the New York Times.

The DOC did not immediately respond to Patch's request for comment.

Read the full New York Times report on Feliciano's suicide attempt here.