Kevin Willis

Kevin Willis is from Queens, New York. He served multiple terms at Rikers, including in 2020 when COVID-19 first swept through the facility. He was released early during the pandemic because of his pre-existing condition of asthma. Before being incarcerated at Rikers, he heard stories of robberies and assaults at the jail complex. When he arrived at Rikers, he found those stories to be largely true of his own experience there. During one of his incarcerations, when he requested to be moved from a housing unit in which he was having a difficult time with other incarcerated people, officers retaliated by locking him in a cell in a new cellblock. He set his bed sheets on fire in order to be let out of his cell. "You have to be a warrior in order to survive" Rikers, he stated. (Summary written by: Annie Anderson)