was disabled on purpose, damning DOI report finds Ninety minutes before an elderly tenant died in a lurching NYCHA elevator, the agency was warned that the lift was behaving erratically — but did nothing, a scathing new report released Tuesday found.
The city Department of Investigation uncovered failings, both specific and systemic, after 84-year-old Olegario Pabon died on Christmas Evein a faulty NYCHA lift.
"There was a complete breakdown of communication at every level at NYCHA,” said DOI Commissioner Mark Peters, who recommended disciplinary action against 10 people, including the head of NYCHA’s elevator unit.
Mayor de Blasio vowed there will be hell to pay.
"The failure to repair the elevator immediately is completely unacceptable,” he said. “We will hold those responsible accountable.”
The investigation laid bare “significant flaws in NYCHA's handling of elevator complaints, as well as NYCHA's compliance with elevator safety laws."
Michael Schwartz/for New York Daily News
A busted Bronx elevator claimed the life of Olegario Pabon (r.) — and NYCHA failed to protect him, according to a bombshell report from city investigators.
A fail-safe device called a brake monitor that might have prevented Pabon’s death had been deliberately disabled, and DOI discovered brake monitor problems in 80 other elevators systemwide.
NYCHA also admitted to DOI that they “missed the boat” by not following a 2014 rule change requiring the annual inspection of elevator brake devices. The head of NYCHA’s elevator unit sat on the panel that drafted the rule.
Details of Pabon’s death were particularly unnerving.
At 2:38 p.m. on Dec. 24, a tenant called NYCHA’s command center to say an elevator in the Boston Road Plaza housing development for seniors in the Bronx was "very dangerous.” It was “going up and down by itself” with the door open, and when the door did close, “it slams real hard.”
The tenant left the same message with the development’s management office, but instead of dispatching a mechanic, NYCHA took no action at all.
The command center listed the elevator warning as a “low priority,” requiring inspection only within 48 hours. A development office secretary made little effort to get help, and then left her job at 4:30 p.m. sharp without contacting anyone.