Correctional
officers at a
New York
Attorney General Letitia James released body camera footage on Friday of the
Dec. 9 assault on Robert Brooks, 43, who died the morning after the incident.
The attorney
general's office is investigating the officers' use of force that led to Brooks'
death.
Brooks was
pronounced dead at a hospital the day after the assault at the Marcy
Correctional Facility, a state prison in
He had been
in prison since 2017 and was serving a 12-year sentence for first-degree
assault. Brooks had arrived at the Marcy Correctional Facility only hours
before the assault, after he was transferred from a nearby state prison.
New York Gov.
Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, ordered the firing of more than a dozen employees at
the state's Department of Corrections and Community Supervision, including
correctional officers and a nurse involved in the attack. The governor said she
was "outraged and horrified" by videos of the "senseless killing."
The footage
shows correctional officers repeatedly punching Brooks in the face and groin
while he sits handcuffed on a medical examination table.
One officer
is seen using a shoe to strike Brooks in the stomach as another lifts him up by
his neck and drops him back on the table. The officers then removed Brooks' shirt
and pants as he lay motionless and bloodied from the beating.
"These
videos are shocking and disturbing, and I advise all to take appropriate care
before choosing to watch them," James said.
The final
results of Brooks' autopsy remain pending.
Preliminary
findings from a medical examination show "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."
The videos do
not contain audio because the officers wearing body cameras had not activated
them. The corrections department issued a directive following the assault
requiring staff to use body cameras in every staff interaction with inmates.
A lawyer for
Brooks' family, Elizabeth Mazur, said the release of the videos means "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," Mazur said. "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 New York
State Correctional Officers and Police Benevolent Association, the union for
state correctional officers, said in a statement that what was observed in the
footage "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," the union said. "We cannot and will not condone
this behavior."
The
Correctional Association of
The footage
of the assault against Brooks "is sickening and appalling, but not
surprising" given the previous findings, the organization’s executive
director, Jennifer Scaife, said, adding that the state prison system needs to "address
the systemic issues that allow such brutality to flourish
