Episode 3 David Weisner Speaks - Rikers Island

hi I'm David William Weisner this is David Weisner speaks here I talk about my life what I've been through what it's been like to be a disabled person all my life and Liv in the United States and what I've been through I've been through all kinds of stuff I'm h i published the book it'll be out in a few weeks called bipolar disorder through my eyes A Memoir of hope that'll be out soon tonight I want to talk to you about Riker's Island the most notorious jail complex in the United States I spent a year there I was never tried I was never convicted of anything I was mentally ill I was off my meds I did nothing but break a restraining order that my mother put in to try to get me to a hospital because she was trying to help me and she was right first day in reers Island it's unimaginable it if you've never been in jail you're about to get an eye full or an earful of what happened to me okay the first day in jail they pack us in like animals and I mean like animals these two rooms two big rooms with like hundreds of men sleeping on the floor two toilets two steel toilets without any privacy for hundreds of men for days and I mean we just laid there for days they fed us three crappy meals through the little slot in the door for days the first day I was there I was in a small a smaller cell at first for a few hours and these guys were there with me I don't they were smoking something I don't know what it was I was I was medication I I was like I'll take a hit of that man whatever it is I still don't know what the hell it is I smoked who knows what it was then they stopped giving everybody their medications I wasn't taking mine anyway but there were people there who had seizures with all kinds of diabetes all kinds of stuff they didn't give them medication so a man was standing next to me and he had a seizure a grand mou seizure whole body twitching he fell down and on his way down some of these other men in the cell two of them one of them grab his ring and pulled it off pull off his gold rings right off his finger while this man fell down and bang he hit his head right on the steel toilet Blood and Guts everywhere everywhere I think he's dead I don't know it was mostly blood a lot of blood everywhere they no one cared they came half hour later and they just rolled his body away and that was the end of that welcome to riko's Island then for the next few days was just the hell of laying there with Harden criminals with other mentally ill people that they stick in there together into those big rooms four days four long days we laid we laid on the cement floor but nothing but two toilets two steel toilets just like the man cracked his head open and killed himself two toilets three meals a day and a floor and I mean a cement floor with nothing else hundreds of men in this it wasn't even that large a room okay okay so then they put us through these Paces one by one they would call us to these machines that x-rayed us okay our whole body x-rayed it would make us take our take our clothes off or our pants down split our butt cheeks look up our butt and they x-rayed us to see if we had any weapons or drugs hidden and this went on for 4 days then I had to meet some doctors some medical exam it was a little hazy back then but I remember everything else d damn well then from there they finally F found us a Cell Block each person they assigned a cell to they signed me because I came in through a court on St Island because I was a mentally ill person who was off my meds who's bipolar they put me in in St George in Staten Island into what I believe is called psychiatric Court we supposed to be a compassionate place with the help people mental problems and hopefully put them right in the hospital where if they would put me there right away I would have went back on meds and I would have been fine in weeks okay instead they put me there for a year I was never tried I was never convicted my lawyers I saw mostly by camera they would bring me to the courthouse at 4:00 in the morning they'd wake us up give us a shitty breakfast and then they this is from the jail the jail itself the uh reers Island these are our trips to the judge okay they came we were reers island is in Queens I live in Sten Island that is where my court is okay the judge who's now dead of cancer thank God told my mother that he was going to teach me a lesson okay told my mother that I'm going to teach him a lesson right what was the lesson to not be a sick person to not be a disabled person to take your medication no no just didn't like my face I don't know could it have been a Jew thing I don't know I'm a Jew a lot of anti-Semitism we'll talk about that later the antism I faced in raicho Island from staff from prisoners all kinds of things so the judge lock me up okay in reer Island they have something called Mo me mental observation it's supposed to be for psychiatric patients which I was one I came from Psych psychiatric court and I was put there right away after the four five four days going through the hell of the entrance exam or whatever they call it and I um it's just horrible you can't even imagine Not only was I in with criminals with men I was in with the criminally insane okay which I guess I was too I didn't really do anything I broke a restraining order mean I went back to my mom's house to get my stuff to move up to news because I'd rent an apartment up there and my mother tricked me rightly so she was trying to get me the help that I needed which is to get me to a hospital and get on the medication where I would have been fine in weeks in instead I was in rers Island for a year you know I knew going to raus Island a lot about it just from the stories from the fear about it I knew I would have to fight in R is Island you have to fight okay I'm a 58 kid from a middle class suburb in Staten is stat Island and I knew I was going to have to fight for real and I had to fight I'll tell you about one of those fights right now I was in an Mo meaning a mental observation unit with about 20 other guys in a uh a dorm there were dorm rooms I mean there were not a college like there were dorms there were just like a big room with like 20 beds and everyone had like this much space between them and then there were other places that were cells which I preferred the cells cuz I like to be alone and safe in my cell okay now I got in I had a friend in this cell block a friend is this big Italian guy built like Mike Tyson maybe not that big but bigger and stronger than me and he was like a friend at first you know they don't let you shower naked in Racers Island and they're smart about that so people don't get raped and he helped me a few times and then this man got got into it with me over religion and Judaism and all kinds of things like that and he he worked in the kitchen okay and I I I didn't I wanted to eat regular meals but I wanted to have everybody had a badge on there an ID a Riker's ID you couldn't take it out with there with you they searched you at the end of the tour I'll call it and you have to have your religion on there or no religion at all so at first I had no religion at all and I was fine I'm not an atheist I'm a big believer in God I don't follow the kosher rules I don't follow Judaism I don't follow anybody but God personally meaning I just follow what I my faith in God okay and so I had a problem with this man and then I wanted to go to like uh just meet other prisoners there was a rabbi there there was some other Jewish prisoners and Rikers I wanted to go to the to the uh to the ceremonies you know they have like a little synagogue not a real one just a room but you know I just wanted to talk to the rabbi and some other prisoners and maybe have something in common something just something to do really there nothing to do there but it's there at the ceiling okay so I had my ID switched to Jewish and then they they continue to treat me the same way for a while but then one day this guy said to me he goes you're Jewish you only eat the kosher meals that's the rule and it is the rule there who I don't know it's the rules there are no rules in right Island this is just Mayhem okay so this guy I as I I came up to the door there a there was a line a mess line I got to the door and I said all right he said here's your meal you know this is it you get kosher meals you're a Jew you're Jewish and it was like a little fish I wasn't going to eat this it I don't disgusting I don't even need fish and so I took it and I tossed it back not even on the floor just onto the table inside the hole so he comes out I me he comes out hard opens the door remember this guy was like a friend of mine for a while I thought he was going to come and talk to me about it instead no no no he throws me a a roundhouse right the biggest punch I've ever seen it was a big guy Rous right right here do you see that right here I still have a mark it was a big bump but I surprised urised him I went I didn't knock me down I I knocked my glasses off okay and I just knew I said go right at him right at him and I thought my eyes were I had my glasses on I thought there was glass in my eyes so I F him blind I closed my eyes I went right at him and I just started punching back back back and forth okay as hard as I could hit him and then I jumped up on him and then old Mayhem broke out I mean it was like a riot in this place there were people on his side the people on my side people told me it was like a riot I was just so you know so amped up from the fight you know uh it was crazy so but I got him down he was on the floor they pulled me off of him I finally opened my eyes found my glasses and then they pulled me out okay and somehow I'm was want getting in trouble I don't know why I didn't thought this fight but I ended it let me tell you that and I walked they came I'm talking like like a hundred Corrections Officers came and pulled me out down the hallway and I was screaming the hallway I was manic as a maniac screaming he was on the floor screaming things to me I told him I going to get him I want to kill him next time we were mad both mad everybody was freaking out it was a big fight and um so and then they they got rid of me I'm like why you getting rid of me I didn't start this thing but no he had tenure whatever they liked him better they left me in another cell to cool off eventually they go they got me to another cell block all right that was Rikers man and when I went in I knew I would have to fight and I didn't want to fight I'm not a fighter I hate fighting I hate violence I don't even watch hockey anymore because I hate the fighting I think it's disgusting I think violence is evil and vile I don't want to fight but I have to survive and I had to survive then and I pray to God I never have to get into another fight ever again because it's disgusting it's evil it's horrible hockey is one of the sports I used to love and play as a child but it's so much fighting in there now it's disgusting it's abusive to children it's abusive to Men Who a lot of people go to hockey I'm this a tangent but just want to get this off my chest a lot of people go into hockey games thinking that they're going to uh see a fight a lot of times they do and those two people did that same fight on the streets of Manhattan instead of Master Square Garden with the Rangers play they would arrest him and put him in jail for assault but in hockey you get five minutes in The Penalty Box it's absurd man that all right I'll get back to Rikers now that was my tangent um but so I went into Rikers and I knew I would have to fight and like I said I didn't want to fight I was scared I'm a 5'8 kid mightbe 5'7 I don't know I haven't been measured since I was 12 but you know I'm not a big kid I knew I had a fight all right with men I was 40 years old at the time uh my my biggest fear at the time wasn't even the fighting was that I would lose my humanity meaning I think I would have to become an animal in this place to survive and I'm afraid of losing my Humanity I guess I could take a beating I was afraid I would change and come out of there bitter and angry and jail hearted and that was my biggest fear more than anything it didn't happen like that okay you know and let me talk about some other things that happened in R Island all right so I was in another dorm uh just a dorm and there were a lot of it was it's a big complex it's had own Island for real it's called rockers Island because it's an island right in a river by Queen in Queens and um this guy the cosos you know they had obviously they have all the power they have the guns they have the Manpower they have everything you know you're at their whim completely and so I was uh when they took you out of the out of the dorms of the cell block they would search you everybody got they lined us up put our arms onto the wall and there was they would pat you down like a normal pat down like the cops would do all right one day they took us all out and um this Co this dude big guy like 6'4 big black guy beard scary to me I'm a little white boy little white Jewish boy from the from the suburbs all right he took me and he put me against another wall facing the other time the other guys were facing that wall then this guy proceeded to take his hand and grab my junk okay I mean grab it hard okay he molested me right on the wall threw my clothes and squeezed it everything and it hurt a lot meaning I had pains in my stomach for two days like anybody who's ever been hitting the balls knows all right this is reiko's Island so now I'm thinking about what to do I'm in pain I have to go see the doctor I have to strip down for the doctor doctor was nice he examined me he said you're okay kid you're lucky you're lucky you still have your balls that was a big man you could have they could have uh crush them whatever okay so then so I was physically okay I was like I said I was in pain for two days two days if anybody been hitting the balls you know what that feels like it is real pain right in the stomach you get it right in the gut lower part of your gut um so then I went to the captain and I said it was just awesome I said the captain this guy just grabbed me by the nuts he molested me and unbelievably this Captain was a good guy he said all right Weisner we're going to write it up and he took you know he write it up then the NYPD came in all right and they they uh they came and took me to a room where they taped they had a tape recorder and they asked me questions I told them everything that happened they weren't Rus people they were NYPD I think they were detectives they weren't in uniform they talked to me they believed me they took down the whole story and um uh what do you call it they I told them the that these guys were taunting me meaning this big dude and his friend every time I walked out of my Stell block were behind me even when I went to the the room where the NYPD was interviewing me they were they were taunting me like Hey little Kik you know and I didn't want to get involved the Coos man they wanted to jump me at this time I had no power I mean he was in trouble obviously I I just said you you know but I was scared couldn't push it too far there were two of them the thousands of them the C I'm a prisoner there all right so the NYPD took down everything they had they had it on tape and they told me that um I don't know they would take care of it whatever I told them they were harassing me they said it's going to happen you know watch yourself but uh honestly I don't know what the hell happened after that but when I saw my lawyers I had two nice lawyers two two female lawyers very nice people and they um told me I talked to them about it I don't remember if it was in person or over the uh they had like a like a teleview like we go on that was a while ago but now we have zoom and FaceTime it was something like that you know but in like a a box or something in Rikers they said you want to sue Rikers about the mestation and I was like I thought about it remember I wasn't even in my right mind I was manic okay but I was in my right mind enough to know I did not want to sue Rikers while I was in Rikers because Anything could happen and I mean anything I've seen people get killed I've seen people stabed so fast you couldn't believe it I saw a man who was in a gurnie he was hurt know what happened to him I saw him get stabbed so fast it was unbelievable as he went out as I took him out what happened I have no idea they don't tell you these things um that's some of the stories about Rikers it's a bad place okay I was a mentally ill person a person diagnosed with bipolar disorder on medication since I was 19 I had made the mistake of listening to my stupid doctor who I won't name took me off medication when I was in my 40s because he had this pet theory he said that people in their 40s and 50s would manic bipolar romatic depression just kind of Peters out it fades out and uh so he took me off the pill and I was stupid enough to listen to him because I always knew to take my medicine and when I was on my medicine I lived a very good life a very nice life I was in college I worked I I taught music I had many students I had many friends I had girlfriends I had a nice life and this doctor took me off to medication okay and I was dumb enough to listen okay all right right this is where we leave I'm just going to give you I'll give you a little bit of the razan story it's a chapter in my book hopefully one day you'll read it I'm going to keep doing these uh video logs called David weissner speaks maybe every week maybe every day whenever I feel like talking okay thank you all God bless you good night