Man Accused of Shoplifting Dies at Brooklyn Courthouse

A man accused of stealing power tools from a hardware store died in a holding cell at a Brooklyn courthouse just before his scheduled arraignment on Friday, according to court records and the police.

The man, identified as Soso Ramishvili, 32, was being held in police custody at the Kings County Criminal Courts Building in Downtown Brooklyn. He faced charges of petty larceny and possessing stolen property and cocaine, the authorities said.

After his arrest on Tuesday, Mr. Ramishvili was scheduled for an arraignment on Wednesday morning. But the hearing was postponed several times this week and rescheduled for Friday morning, court records show.

Then, just before Friday’s scheduled appearance, Mr. Ramishvili was discovered unconscious by the police at 8:25 a.m. Emergency medical workers were called to the courthouse and pronounced him dead, the police said.

The cause of Mr. Ramishvili’s death was not immediately clear. But the police said he had been taken to the hospital multiple times after his arrest on Tuesday.

Still, his death has caused outrage among lawyers and public defenders as well as renewed criticism of the treatment of people accused of crimes in New York City.

“The callous disregard that law enforcement continues to show towards New Yorkers is deeply shocking,” the Legal Aid Society and Brooklyn Defender Services, two public defense organizations, said in a joint statement on Friday. The groups also called for an “urgent, thorough and independent” investigation into the matter.

Mr. Ramishvili did not have a lawyer because he had not yet been arraigned, Legal Aid said.

The authorities said that a security guard saw Mr. Ramishvili take power tools and other items from the shelves of a Home Depot in the Old Mill Basin neighborhood of Brooklyn on Tuesday morning, hide them under his jacket and walk out without paying. The guard, who noticed Mr. Ramishvili on surveillance footage, said he had stolen goods valued at $213 from the store, according to the authorities. He was also carrying a vessel of cocaine at the time, they said.

Four other people have died this year in city jails or just after being released from custody.

On Thursday, a woman who was being held at the Rikers Island jail complex was pronounced dead after being discovered unresponsive, according to the Department of Correction.

Earlier this month, Ariel Quidone, 20, who had been accused of robbery, died in a hospital after collapsing in his Rikers cell. Two other men who were being held in New York City jails died within the same week last month.

In an interview on Saturday, Anna Papava, a friend of Mr. Ramishvili’s, said that he had moved to the United States from the country of Georgia about two years ago. Mr. Ramishvili worked sporadically for the food delivery platform DoorDash, she said.

He lived with a woman in Brooklyn and the two had a 10-year-old daughter together. But the couple had recently split, Ms. Papava said.

Since then, she said, Mr. Ramishvili had been struggling and his behavior had begun to worry his friends and family.

“He had some problems,” she said. “Mental problems.”

Ms. Papava said members of Mr. Ramishvili’s family knew he had been arrested on shoplifting charges this week. But they learned he had died only after detectives knocked on their door on Friday and informed them.

Ms. Papava said Mr. Ramishvili’s father, who lives in New York, checked into the hospital with symptoms of a heart attack after hearing the news. She described his mother, who lives in Germany, as “crestfallen.”

Family and friends are desperate to learn how and why Mr. Ramishvili died, Ms. Papava said.

“We are shocked,” she said. “What’s going on? Nobody knows nothing.”

Maria Cramer contributed reporting.