Fatal beating of Black inmate at New York prison sparks outrage: Here’s what we know

By Karina Tsui, Zoe Sottile, Raja Razek and Emma Tucker, CNN

(CNN) — Protesters in New York gathered Monday at separate demonstrations in Manhattan and Albany, holding up signs reading “Black Lives Matter” and “Justice for Robert Brooks” days after a disturbing video of the Black inmate’s fatal beating at the hands of correctional officers was released.

Robert Brooks, a 43-year-old man serving a 12-year sentence for assault, died in the early hours of December 10 after he was beaten by at least three officers at Marcy Correctional Facility, an all-male state prison in north Albany.

His death has enraged people across the country, along with inmates’ relatives and activists, one of whom called the incident a symptom of a decades-long incarceration system “designed to dehumanize the people it takes and puts behind the wall.”

“This isn’t just about Robert Brooks,” Jamaica Miles, the co-founder of All Of Us, an anti-racist organization based in Schenectady, told CNN affiliate WRGB. “There are family members standing with us right now whose loved ones are in that same prison.”

The FBI and US Department of Justice are reviewing the case, and the New York Attorney General’s Office of Special Investigations has launched an investigation into Brooks’ death. Authorities have not released a cause of death for Brooks.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul has said she was “outraged and horrified” by Brooks’ “senseless killing” and announced she would appoint a new superintendent at Marcy Correctional Facility and expedite $400 million to install fixed cameras and distribute body-worn cameras at all Department of Corrections and Community Service (DOCCS) facilities.

Hochul directed corrections agency Commissioner Daniel Martuscello to appoint Bennie Thorpe as the new permanent superintendent of Marcy Correctional Facility, her office said.

Thorpe, now superintendent at Shawangunk Correctional Facility in the Hudson Valley, has over 20 years of experience in corrections and “is a career DOCCS employee who has never served at Marcy or nearby facilities, giving him expertise and a fresh perspective on what must be done,” the Democrat’s office said.

Here’s what we know:

What the video shows

Brooks was transferred from Mohawk Correctional Facility to Marcy Correctional Facility on the morning of December 9, according to New York Attorney General Letitia James, a Democrat, who released footage of the beating Friday.

The eight videos, dated from the evening of December 9 and reviewed by CNN, were taken from body-worn cameras on four different officers. They begin with Brooks – face down with his hands cuffed behind his back – being carried into a medical examination room by three officers. It is unclear what led up to this moment.

One officer appears to shove a white material in Brooks’ mouth as another officer holds Brooks by the throat. The officer then repeatedly punches Brooks in the face, while another officer punches him in the groin. One officer is seen striking Brooks with a shoe.

Two officers then pull Brooks to a seated upright position at the edge of an exam table –– one officer holding Brooks by his neck –– before laying him flat on his back. Another officer then puts his foot on Brooks’ lower torso, while another officer hits him again in the chest.

The officer who struck Brooks with his leg is then seen restraining Brooks’ legs before punching him in the buttocks approximately three times.

He and another officer appear to yank Brooks up to the edge of the exam table once again, his face visibly bloody. Brooks appears to speak before an officer punches him in the chest again.

Two officers then grab Brooks by the collar of his shirt and shoulder area, picking him off the table before forcing him to the back right corner of the room and holding him up against a wall as other officers look on.

Minutes later, one of the officers gives Brooks a sternum rub –– a technique used to assess if a person is conscious – as another officer pulls off what appears to be Brooks’ green inmate uniform. The footage ends with Brooks no longer handcuffed, lying on the table, motionless in his underwear.

Who are the officers involved?

The Department of Corrections named 14 staff connected to Brooks’ death. As of December 31, none of the officers have been charged with wrongdoing.

CNN has not been able to confirm the specific identities of the officers shown in the video, or what role each named person is alleged to have had.

The correctional officers’ union, which typically speaks on behalf of prison employees, issued a statement that described the footage as “incomprehensible to say the least” and “certainly not reflective of the great work that the vast majority of our membership conducts every day.”

CNN has reached out to the named officers for comment. None of the officers or their representatives have commented since the video came to light.

At least three of the officers involved in Brooks’ beating were previously accused of assault, a review of court documents obtained by CNN shows.

Sgt. Glenn Trombly and Officer Anthony Farina were named in a complaint filed in federal court in 2022, based on a 2020 incident at Marcy prison.

The complaint alleges as another correctional officer beat a handcuffed inmate at the correctional facility, Trombly and Farina “looked on and failed to intervene in any manner to prevent or stop the beating,” leaving the plaintiff with “a permanent facial deformity.” The case is pending.

The plaintiff’s attorney told CNN it is office policy not to comment on pending cases.

Farina resigned from his role at the Marcy Correctional Facility after Brooks’ death, the Department of Corrections and Community Supervision told CNN Monday.

A different officer, Nicholas Anzalone, who was named by the department, is also named in a separate federal complaint in 2022, stating he joined an assault on an inmate by another correctional officer at the same facility.

The complaint alleges the officer was involved in a cover-up fabricating disciplinary charges against the inmate, who was left with “substantial physical and mental injuries.” The case is ongoing.

The inmate was “brutally assaulted in 2020 at Marcy CF, the same prison where Robert Brooks was just murdered (involving) one of the same corrections officers,” the inmate’s attorney, Katie Rosenfeld, told CNN.

Her client “thought he would die that day, as officers punched and kicked him to a bloody heap. The officers then lied to cover up the beating,” Rosenfeld’s statement says.

“If DOCCS (the Department of Corrections and Community Supervision) had done anything about the officers at Marcy who it knew were routinely terrorizing incarcerated people, Mr. Brooks would still be alive today,” Rosenfeld added.

2022 watchdog report calls out physical assaults, racial discrimination at facility

A 2022 report about Marcy from the Correctional Association of New York, which provides independent oversight of prisons in the state, notes multiple problems at the facility, including allegations of “physical assaults” by staff on inmates and “pervasive allegations of racial discrimination.”

Around 80% of inmates surveyed in the report said they had seen or been subjected to verbal, physical, or sexual abuse by staff. Inmates reported experiencing seemingly random assaults from the staff as well as targeted attacks meted out as punishment, the report found.

In a statement at the time, the organization’s executive director, Jennifer Scaife, said, “A number of issues at Marcy troubled us during our monitoring visit, including pervasive allegations of racial discrimination, mistreatment by staff, and non-adherence to the requirements of HALT (the Humane Alternatives to Long-Term Solitary Confinement Act).”

The report recommended the Office of Special Investigations and Inspector General investigate the “widespread claims of abuse at Marcy.”

The Department of Corrections and Community Supervision told CNN in a statement that they have “addressed or are in the process of addressing the majority of the recommendations contained in the 2022 CANY report on Marcy Correctional Facility.”

The New York Office of Inspector General investigated and took action following the release of the CANY report, a spokesperson for the office told CNN.

Citing confidentiality in revealing any active investigations, the office said it responded to CANY’s briefing in its recent public reports “into the misapplication of drug testing, the unconscionable persistence of racial disparities in disciplinary infractions, and the implementation of the HALT legislation intended to limit the use of solitary confinement.”

The inspector general’s office visited New York’s 42 prisons, training sessions for corrections staff and held quarterly meetings with CANY. “Every specific allegation from incarcerated New Yorkers, correctional staff, and CANY alike is thoroughly and timely reviewed by OIG leadership,” said a spokesperson for the office.

How experts are responding

It seemed possible Brooks sustained a fatal spinal cord injury when officers lifted him from the table by his shirt, Dr. Jeremy Faust, an emergency physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School, told CNN.

“My jaw hit the floor when I saw it,” Faust said, “because it looked like just enough force in the right direction to do real damage.” Although Brooks was previously alert, he does not seem to move or react to stimuli after officers pick him up.

The way officers lifted Brooks hyperextended his neck, Faust explained. This could have “caused a devastating spinal cord injury, the result of which would be immediate or almost immediate paralysis of the body, including the respiratory muscles,” he said.

Brooks appeared to be compliant and was not posing a threat when officers were using force against him, which is considered excessive by standard police protocol, one law enforcement expert told CNN.

“Just because someone is handcuffed does not mean they cannot be subjected to force. However – and this is a big however – if someone is no longer a direct threat to the officers and is complying with instructions, it would certainly be excessive to strike them, choke them, et cetera,” said Bryce Peterson, adjunct professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and a senior research scientist at the Center for Justice Research and Innovation.

Peterson said potential excessive use of force is evident in the video “when officers are cleaning blood off Mr. Brooks’ face and then begin to strike him – and continue to strike and grab him for the next 30 seconds,” Peterson said.

A US Supreme Court ruling in 1992 sets the standard for police use of force, said Peterson, who was part of a team that later did the first evaluation of a correctional body-camera program at a jail in Loudoun County, Virginia. The ruling established force is “only justified when it is used to maintain or establish discipline,” he said.

Peterson said it’s notable from the footage of the Brooks’ incident that he was already injured when he first appears in the video, and the investigation will need to determine whether his injuries were “from a prior use of force by correctional officers, or an inmate-on-inmate altercation,” Peterson said.

CNN’s Chris Boyette, Caroll Alvarado, Polo Sandoval and Tanika Gray contributed to this report.

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