Inmate died after 7 days in NYC cell

NEW YORK (WABC) -- Bradley Ballard's stepfather and crying mother told us today from Houston Texas that they received a call from a chaplain from Rikers Island several months ago that their son had died but the were few details.

"They said he had a heart attack so I mean there was no mention of anything out of the ordinary other than that."

But now, specific and disturbing details are emerging about Ballard's death on Rikers thru an investigation by the Associated Press. It suggests that Ballard was locked in his cell in the mental observation unit for 7 days last September, denied medication at times, clogged his toilet so it overflowed, stripped off his clothes and abused his genitals, all as correction officers passed by, and never intervened. Sarah Kerr is member of the Prisoner's Rights Project at Legal Aid.

"That he was allowed to deteriorate in a unit that's designed to provide the best care available is outrageous in the City of New York," she said.

It's estimated that 40% of the city's 12,000 inmates, most of them housed on Rikers, are mentally ill. One-thirds, suffer from severe mental illness, like Jerome Murdough, who died five months after Bradley. He literally baked to death after equipment malfunctioned and no one noticed.. A warden has since been transferred and a correction officer suspended for several days. Now, because of the Ballard revelations, the Department says it has started shift-by-shift briefings on vulnerable inmates.

"People are going to ask, how did this happen?" Kerr continued, "it's neglect, people went by and did nothing."

His heartbroken parents just can't understand how he could have been treated the way he was.

Griffin stepfather said They don't do that to our animals yet they are doing it to another human being."

While his mother had this to say "It shouldn't have happened what happened to Brad. Brad was was good son."