Officials have released few details about the assault that led to the death of Robert L. Brooks at the Marcy Correctional Facility in central New York.
Credit...Nathaniel Brooks for The New York Times

Hochul Orders Firing of 14 Prison Workers After Fatal Attack on Inmate

Video of the deadly assault on Robert L. Brooks was “horrific,” “disturbing” and “devastating,” a lawyer for his family said after they watched it.

by · NY Times

Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York has ordered that 13 corrections officers and a prison nurse be fired after the fatal beating of an inmate in an attack that their union called “incomprehensible.”

Officials have released few details about the assault that led to the death on Dec. 10 of the inmate, Robert L. Brooks, beyond that it had occurred the day before at the Marcy Correctional Facility in central New York and had been at least partly captured on video.

The state’s corrections commissioner, Daniel F. Martuscello III, announced the death of an unnamed inmate on Dec. 15, saying it had occurred after a “use of force” by Marcy prison staff members.

Mr. Brooks, 43, was identified as the victim on Dec. 16. He had been serving a 12-year sentence after pleading guilty in Monroe County in 2017 to first-degree assault in the stabbing of a former girlfriend, according to state prison records and local news reports. The Oneida County medical examiner’s office will conduct an autopsy to determine the cause of his death, officials said.

Late Monday, a lawyer for members of Mr. Brooks’s family, Elizabeth Mazur, said in a statement that she and her clients had reviewed the video of the deadly attack. New York’s attorney general, Letitia James, has said she would make the footage public once Mr. Brooks’s family had seen it.

“As expected, watching the horrific and violent final moments of Robert’s life was devastating for his loved ones, and will be disturbing to anyone who views the video following its release by the attorney general’s office,” Ms. Mazur said in the statement.

“We will not rest until we have secured justice for Robert’s memory, and safety for the prisoners at Marcy Correctional Facility,” she added.

The 14 corrections employees accused of being involved in the attack were placed on administrative leave around the time the death was disclosed amid inquiries by the department’s Office of Special Investigations, the state attorney general and the State Police.

With the investigations continuing, Ms. Hochul said over the weekend that, after an internal review, she had directed Mr. Martuscello to begin the process of terminating the employees.

“The vast majority of correction officers do extraordinary work under difficult circumstances, and we are all grateful for their service,” she said in a statement. “But we have no tolerance for individuals who cross the line, break the law and engage in unnecessary violence or targeted abuse.”

Mr. Martuscello said in a statement that the employees in question, including two sergeants, had been suspended without pay. Firing them, he said, was “in the best interest of the agency and the communities we serve.” One corrections officer, Anthony Farina, has already resigned, the department said.

“There is no place for brutality in our department, and we will vigorously pursue justice against the individuals who committed this senseless act,” the commissioner said.

Unless those accused of being involved in the attack are criminally charged, arbitration and union rules could make it difficult to fire them. The union that represents corrections employees said in a statement that it would fulfill its obligation “to represent all of its members,” but it strongly condemned what the 14 are accused of doing.

The union noted in the statement that members of its executive board had seen footage of a small portion of the attack.

“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,” the union said, adding, “We cannot and will not condone this behavior.”

State prison records show that Mr. Brooks had been serving his sentence at Mohawk Correctional Facility, which is about a 15-minute drive from the Marcy prison. Both are medium-security facilities.

It was unclear when he was brought from one prison to the other and under what circumstances. A corrections department spokesman, citing the continuing investigations, declined to comment.

In a report issued last year, the Correctional Association of New York, the state’s legally empowered prison watchdog, documented the findings of a monitoring visit to the Marcy prison in October 2022.

At the time of the visit, the association found, 41 percent of Marcy prisoners were Black and 21 percent were Hispanic. The state inspector general reported in 2022 that 91 percent of the prison’s staff members were white.

Four out of five inmates interviewed at the prison, which holds around 800 inmates, reported having witnessed or experienced abuse by staff members, and nearly 70 percent reported racial bias, according to the association’s report, which urged state officials to investigate the allegations.

One interviewee said that physical abuse was “rampant.” When he arrived at Marcy, he added, a corrections officer had told him: “‘This is a hands-on facility. We’re going to put hands on you if we don’t like what you’re doing.’”

Jennifer Scaife, the correctional association’s executive director, said in an interview on Monday that she was “appalled but not in the least bit surprised” by what happened to Mr. Brooks.

She welcomed the moves by the governor and the corrections commissioner as a “good start” but said they most likely had little choice given that the attack was captured on video that Ms. James has pledged to release publicly.

Although Ms. Scaife had not seen it, she said she believed that “this video shows a murder.”

Politics in the New York Region