NY correction officers pummeled handcuffed prisoner before death, footage shows

NEW YORK (AP) — A man fatally beaten in a New York prison this month was repeatedly pummeled by correction officers while in handcuffs, struck in the chest by a shoe, then lifted up by the neck and dropped, according to body-worn camera footage released Friday by the state’s attorney general.

Robert Brooks, 43, was pronounced dead on Dec. 10, the morning after the assault at the Marcy Correctional Facility in Oneida County. Thirteen correction officers and a nurse implicated in the attack will face termination, according to New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, who said she was “outraged and horrified” by videos of the “senseless killing.”

The footage made public Friday by the New York Attorney General Letitia James shows correction officers repeatedly punching Brooks in the face and groin as he sits handcuffed on a medical examination table.

As one of the officers uses a shoe to strike Brooks in the stomach, another yanks him up by his neck and drops him back on the table. The officers then remove the man’s shirt and pants as he lies motionless and bloodied on his back.

Brooks was declared dead at a hospital the following morning. Preliminary findings from a medical examination indicate “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," according to court filings. The final results of the autopsy are still pending.

The videos do not include audio because the body cameras had not been activated by the officers wearing them.

James said her office was investigating the use of force that led to the death, but did not say whether any of the officers involved in the beating would face criminal charges.

“These videos are shocking and disturbing and I advise all to take appropriate care before choosing to watch them,” she added.

An attorney for Brooks did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Brooks had been serving a 12-year prison sentence for first-degree assault since 2017, according to the department. He had arrived at the Marcy Correctional Facility only hours before the beating, after being transferred from another nearby state prison, officials said.

The Correctional Association of New York, a prison oversight group, said they had documented reports of pervasive brutality and racism inside the Marcy Correctional Facility during a monitoring visit two years ago.

In a statement, the president of the New York State Sheriffs’ Association, Craig DuMond, said he was “shocked, like all right thinking people, by the actions” of the officers.

“No human being should be treated that way by another human being,” he added. “And it is made even worse by the fact that the extreme cruelty was inflicted by those entrusted with the power of government, against those they were entrusted to guard and protect.”