UTICA, N.Y. (AP) — Six New York prison workers have been indicted for second-degree murder in the beating death of an inmate who was handcuffed, while four others were charged with lesser crimes.
The beating of Robert Brooks by multiple officers at Marcy Correctional Facility in December was caught on body cameras, triggering widespread outrage and calls for justice.
Gov. Kathy Hochul announced the murder charges Thursday afternoon in a statement.
“Robert Brooks should be alive today. The brutal attack on Mr. Brooks was sickening, and I immediately moved to terminate the employment of those involved. Now, the perpetrators have been rightfully charged with murder and State Police are making arrests,” the statement says.
Some of the corrections officers appeared in a Utica court in handcuffs while a judge heard pleas and considered bond.
The special prosecutor, Onondaga County District Attorney William Fitzpatrick, began to detail the charges in court Thursday afternoon. Fitzpatrick had previously said he would not comment on the investigation until a grand jury had acted.
Body-camera video shows officers pummeling Brooks, whose hands are cuffed behind his back. Officers strike him in the chest with a shoe and lift him by the neck and drop him. The video recorded on the night of Dec. 9 has no sound, but the guards meting out the punishment and watching it appear unconcerned. Brooks, 43, died the next day.
An autopsy report issued by the county medical examiner’s office in January concluded that Brooks’ death was caused by compression of the neck and multiple blunt impact injuries and that the manner of death was determined to be a homicide, according to Brooks’ family attorneys.
Hochul’s announcement of the murder charges came on the fourth day of a wildcat strike, in which at least some corrections officers are refusing to enter their shifts at 36 correctional facilities across the state, according to prison officials.
“This incident is a sobering reminder of the challenges facing our correctional system. I’ve worked with Commissioner Martuscello on safety reforms, including installing new security cameras, strengthening the Office of Special Investigations and increasing compensation for our hard-working correction officers,” she said in Thursday’s statement.
Hochul had ordered state officials to initiate proceedings to fire more than a dozen employees implicated in the attack on Brooks.
Brooks had been serving a 12-year prison sentence for first-degree assault since 2017. He arrived at the prison 200 miles (320 kilometers) northwest of New York City only hours before the beating after being transferred from another nearby facility, officials said.
Brooks’ son, Robert Brooks Jr., claimed in a federal lawsuit filed in January that his father’s attackers “systematically and casually beat him to death” and that the prison system tolerates violence.
Even before Brooks’ death, employees at the medium-security prison had been accused of abusing incarcerated people.
Fitzpatrick took over the case as a special prosecutor after state Attorney General Letitia James recused herself, citing her office’s representation of several implicated officers in separate civil lawsuits. Those employees had previously been accused of either taking part in previous beatings of inmates or letting them continue.
“It’s fortunate that video evidence of a callous murder made it possible for charges to be brought against these officers. For far too long, that evidence has not existed, making transparency and accountability out of reach,” said Jennifer Scaife, executive director of the Correctional Association of New York.
That watchdog group reported “rampant abuse by staff” at Marcy after interviewing people incarcerated there in October 2022, who told them of physical assaults in locations without cameras, such as between the gates, in vans and in showers. A guard told one new arrival that this was a “‘hands-on facility,’ we’re going to put hands on you if we don’t like what you’re doing,” according to the report.
