Warning: This article contains graphic images of violence and injury which some readers may find distressing
13 correctional officers and a nurse are under investigation after footage revealed an inmate being assaulted before his death.
On December 10, 43-year-old Robert Brooks – an inmate in state prison Marcy Correctional Facility in Oneida County, New York – passed away.
Yesterday (December 27), body-camera footage was made public showing multiple correctional officers beating Brooks while he’s in handcuffs sat on a medical examination table.
Multiple videos obtained from body cameras – four other body cameras worn by officers involved in the incident but not activated resulting in no available audio recording – show officers punching and kicking the 43-year-old inmate, who had his hands handcuffed behind his back.
An officer can be seen stuffing material in Brooks’ mouth, with another striking him in the face and one even using a shoe to hit him.
Brooks’ final official autopsy results have not yet been publicly released, however, court filings revealed medical examiners initial findings.
The filings document medical examiners’ ‘concern for asphyxia due to compression of the neck as the cause of death, as well as the death being due to actions of another,’ as quoted by the Associated Press.
The New York Attorney General’s Office of Special Investigation (OSI) previously revealed it had opened an investigation into Brooks’ passing.
New York Attorney General Letitia James has also addressed Brooks’ passing, calling the videos ‘shocking and disturbing’.
In a statement shared online on December 21, Governor Hochul said she’d ‘directed DOCCS Commissioner Martuscello to immediately begin the termination process for 14 individuals who were involved in the fatal attack on an incarcerated individual at Marcy Correctional Facility’.
While arguing ‘the vast majority of correction officers do extraordinary work under difficult circumstances’ and everyone is ‘grateful for their service’, Governor Hochul stated there is ‘no tolerance for individuals who cross the line, break the law and engage in unnecessary violence or targeted abuse’.
She noted how she’s ‘committed to accountability for all those involved’ and offered her ‘condolences to the deceased individual’s family and loved ones’.
And Elizabeth Mazur, lawyer for Brooks’ family, issued a statement.
It reads: “Members of the public can now view for themselves the horrific and extreme nature of the deadly attack on Robert L. Brooks. As viewers can see, Mr. Brooks was fatally, violently beaten by a group of officers whose job was to keep him safe. He deserved to live, and everyone else living in Marcy Correctional Facility deserves to know they do not have to live in fear of violence at the hands of prison staff.”
The union for state correctional officers, the New York State Correctional Officers and Police Benevolent Association, said in a statement: “What we witnessed is incomprehensible to say the least and is certainly not reflective of the great work that the vast majority of our membership conducts every day.
“This incident not only endangers our entire membership but undermines the integrity of our profession. We cannot and will not condone this behavior.”
UNILAD has contacted the New York State Correctional Officers and Police Benevolent Association for additional comment.
Although, executive director of the alternatives-to-incarceration nonprofit Center for Community Alternatives, David Condliffe, argued we ‘don’t need to watch this footage to know what it reveals’.
Condliffe said the footage simply represents the ‘generations of encouraged, calculated cruelty and abuse of power that fester and metastasize behind the blue wall of silence’.
He resolved: “For every instance caught on camera, countless more acts of violence and murder in prisons are ignored, justified, or covered up. Accountability must include, but cannot stop with, the firing of a few individuals. Their violence is not an anomaly; it is the product of a system steeped in impunity.”
If you have experienced a bereavement and would like to speak with someone in confidence, contact The Compassionate Friends on (877) 969-0010.
