A newly released video of a fatal beating in a New York prison shows correctional officers repeatedly hitting a handcuffed man, hitting him in the chest with a shoe, lifting him by the neck and dropping him.
Body camera footage of the Dec. 9 assault on Robert Brooks was released Friday by the state’s attorney general, who is investigating the officers’ use of force.
Brooks, 43, was pronounced dead at a hospital the morning after the assault at Marcy Correctional Facility, a state prison where he was incarcerated in Oneida County.
Thirteen correctional officers and a nurse involved in the attack will face the death penalty, according to New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, who said she was “outraged and horrified” by the videos showing the “senseless killing.”
Footage released Friday shows correctional officers repeatedly punching Brooks in the face and groin as he sits handcuffed on a medical examination table.
While one officer uses the shoe to strike Brooks in the stomach, another grabs him by the neck and drops him back onto the table. Officers then removed the man’s shirt and pants as he lay motionless and bloodied on his back.
“These videos are shocking and disturbing, and I advise everyone to exercise appropriate caution before choosing to watch them,” New York Attorney General Letitia James said.
The final results of Brooks’ autopsy are still pending.
The preliminary results of the medical examination indicate “fears that suffocation due to pressure on the neck was the cause of death, as well as that the death was caused by the actions of another person,” according to court files.
The videos do not include audio because the body cameras are not activated by the officers wearing them. The state Department of Corrections and Community Supervision issued guidance in the wake of Brooks’ death requiring staff to use body cameras in every staff interaction with incarcerated people.
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James said her office is investigating the use of force that led to Brooks’ death, but she did not say whether any of the officers would be charged with crimes.
With the release of the videos, “members of the public can now witness firsthand the horrific and extreme nature of the fatal attack on Robert L. Brooks,” said Elizabeth Mazur, his family’s attorney.
“As viewers can see, Mr. Brooks was brutally beaten by a group of officers whose job it was to keep him safe,” Mazur said. “He deserved to live, and every other person living at Marcy Correctional Facility deserves to know that they do not have to live in fear of violence at the hands of prison staff.”
The state corrections officers union, which viewed footage of the assault before it was released to the public, said in a statement: “What we witnessed is incomprehensible, to say the least, and certainly does not reflect the great work being done by the vast majority of our members.” every day.”
“This incident not only puts our entire membership at risk, it undermines the integrity of our profession. We cannot and will not condone this behavior,” the union, New York State Correctional Officers and the Police Benevolent Association said.
Brooks had been serving a 12-year prison sentence for first-degree assault since 2017. Officials said he arrived at Marcy Correctional Facility just hours before he was beaten, after being transferred from another nearby state prison.
Marcy is located about 323 kilometers northwest of New York City, between the cities of Rome and Utica.
The New York Correctional Association, a prison watchdog group, said it documented reports of rampant brutality and racism inside Marcy Correctional Facility during a monitoring visit two years ago.
Jennifer Scaife, the organization’s executive director, said the footage of Brooks being beaten was “disgusting and horrific, but not surprising” given its previous findings. She called on the state’s prison system to “address the systemic issues that allow this brutality to flourish.”
Tina Longo, senior staff attorney at the Legal Aid Society of New York City, called for “full transparency” about state corrections officers’ use of force and “full accountability for this tragedy.”
“Like everyone who saw this video, we are horrified, angry and deeply saddened,” Longo said, describing the attack on Brooks as “a horrific display of inhumanity and absolutely horrific.”
“All too often, the violence that occurs behind prison walls remains hidden or becomes normalized in the public eye once the headlines fade,” said Longo, whose organization provides public defense services and has clients in state prisons.
“We don’t need to watch this footage to know what it reveals: generations of encouraged and calculated cruelty and abuse of power that festers and escalates,” said David Condliffe, executive director of the nonprofit Center for Community Based Alternatives to Prison. Spreading behind the blue wall of silence.
“In every case caught on camera, countless acts of prison violence and murder are ignored, justified or covered up,” Condliffe said in a statement. “Accountability must include, but cannot stop at, the firing of a few individuals. Their violence is not an anomaly; it is the product of a system steeped in impunity.”
& Edition 2024 The Canadian Press
