[What you need to know to start the day: Get New York Today in your inbox.] More than a thousand inmates have been stuck in freezing cells at a federal jail on the Brooklyn waterfront that has had limited power and heat for at least this week, according to federal public defenders and leaders of the union representing the jail’s corrections officers. The jail, the Metropolitan Detention Center, houses more than 1,600 inmates and lies in an industrial swath near the waterfront in Sunset Park, Brooklyn. Some are linked to high-profile drug trafficking and terrorism cases, while other inmates are comparatively anonymous New Yorkers awaiting trial. The accounts of conditions at the jail were described to The New York Times by six lawyers and paralegals with local Federal Defenders offices, who had spoken with around three dozen inmates at M.D.C.; two union leaders; and an employee at the jail who was not authorized to speak publicly.

Source: New York Times February 01, 2019 15:43 UTC