Organizer Rev. Kevin McCall sees the deadly beating of Robert Brooks at Marcy Correctional Facility as the “George Floyd” for incarcerated New Yorkers. Body-worn camera recordings showed corrections officers punching and kicking the handcuffed 42-year-old Black man in a prison medical examination room just hours before he was transported to a local hospital and pronounced dead on Dec. 10.
Roughly two weeks later, State Attorney General Letitia James released the footage publicly (WARNING: link leads to content some may find distressing). Footage from eight different officers was published online.
Condemnation of the actions of the prison guards soon followed from various directions ranging from advocates like McCall and Kevin “Renny” Smith, executive director of Families and Friends of the Wrongfully Convicted; sports media personalities like Stephen A. Smith, Gov. Kathy Hochul, and the NY Department of Corrections and Community Supervision (DOCCS) — the state agency running the Oneida County prison. 14 staff members were implicated, but none are charged as of press time.
“Racism and correction officer brutality didn’t get worse in New York state and beyond – what it got is recorded,” said Smith. “When I was in prison, myself and numerous others complained about correction officers’ brutality, and it was ignored. Unfortunately for Robert Brooks, he lost his life. But it was recorded. Now society [and] the public gets to see this.
“Now I really don’t know what holding them accountable looks like. Some people say they need to be fired. Some people say they need to be arrested. None of that [happened] and [by Jan. 10] it will be a month. When it comes to law enforcement officers taking the lives of a Black person, the justice system moves slow with us.”
Racial disparities in Marcy
Just as widespread police brutality against Black Americans existed long before the Floyd killing galvanized the 2020 protests, use-of-force at Marcy has a long and well-documented history. The Correctional Association of New York (CANY), which independently monitors New York prisons as assigned by state law, noted racial disparities and a “retaliatory environment” after representatives visited the medium-security prison in Oct. 2022.
The oversight organization also surveyed people in custody about abuse and access, with 80% saying they experienced or witnessed abuse.
“We unfortunately hear about cases where people have been assaulted or faced physical abuse, verbal abuse and sexual assault and abuse [happens] in state prisons far too often,” said Sumeet Sharma, a CANY director. “It’s something that we especially noted at Marcy. [When we asked] people if they’ve seen or experienced assault or abuse, there was a particularly large degree of people who answered ‘yes’ at Marcy.”
67% of respondents saw or experienced racialized abuse at the prison. Black people held at Marcy said they were denied access to the mess hall due to their braids or cornrows, and “short time limits to eat were sometimes imposed through threats and use of force.” Incarcerated individuals also reported staff repeated racial slurs, unequally treated Black and Brown people and made “threatening comments” when different racial groups mingled.
41% of the prison population identified as Black at the time of CANY’s visit. Like most DOCCS facilities, Marcy lies in a remote town far from New York City. The surrounding Oneida County is overwhelmingly white and boasts a tiny Black population. Sharma says while the findings undoubtedly stem from racial differences between corrections officers and incarcerated individuals, similar incidents occurred in prisons like Sing Sing and Green Haven, which are closer to NYC and boast a more diverse staff than other facilities across the state.
In fact, racial disparities were observed in disciplinary measures across the state’s prisons in a State of New York Offices of the Inspector General report published on Nov. 22. The findings noted 114 of the most prolific DOCCS disciplinarians issued misbehavior reports exclusively to Black and Brown incarcerated individuals. In general, the probe found Black people in New York state prisons were 38% more likely to receive a misbehavior report compared to white people.
New York State responds to Brooks’s death
Hochul announced an order to kick off firing procedures for the 14 implicated staff members on Dec. 27. Three days later, she visited the prison and announced several immediate reforms including installing a superintendent for Marcy, bolstering the DOCCS whistleblower hotline and further funding CANY. A previous $400 million initiative towards fixing and expanding body-worn camera surveillance in state prisons was also “expedited.”
So far, 13 of the implicated staff members have been suspended. One resigned. To be clear, DOCCS and the governor cannot directly terminate the corrections officers and must go through an independent arbitration process due to a bargaining agreement with their union. Past findings by the Marshall Project and New York Times showed such hearings often concluded with abusive guards returning to work.
In his statement, DOCCS Commissioner Daniel F. Martuscello III called Brooks’s death a killing.
“Watching the video evidence of Robert Brooks’s life being taken left me feeling deeply repulsed and nauseated,” said Martuscello. “There is no excuse and no rationalization for a vulgar, inhumane act that senselessly took a life. This type of behavior cannot be normalized, and I will not allow it to be within DOCCS. We will transparently and independently investigate this tragedy but also our entire department to identify places where we can improve and make changes.”
AG James steps away from investigation
James announced she would hand off investigations to local prosecutor William J. Fitzpatrick on Jan. 2 fearing a conflict of interest – several corrections officers accused of beating Brooks are represented by attorneys provided by her office as defendants in other matters.
The AG both investigates “matters where an officer of the law may have caused the death of a civilian” and provides legal representation to state agencies, including to Department of Correction employees, through the Division of State Counsel.
“While we are confident in the firewalls set up between the Division of State Counsel and the Office of Special Investigation, even the possibility or mere appearance of a conflict could tie up a potential prosecution in lengthy legal challenges or get a potential prosecution outright dismissed,” said James in a video-recorded statement.
Smith expressed frustration over another week without anyone being arrested over Brooks’s death, calling it “justice delayed is justice denied.”
“When [Luigi Mangione] was accused of killing the insurance CEO, how did he become a suspect? They seen him on the video,” said Smith. “They put out a massive manhunt and they gathered evidence as they went along. But the video showed him taking that man’s life. Here it is. We have clear video that shows these correction staff brutalizing Robert Brooks…they should have been arrested. They should have not been home for Christmas or New Year’s.”
Black New Yorkers call for further change
For advocates, correcting corrections goes beyond the governor’s initial reforms. McCall organized a racial justice protest outside Hochul’s office last week, renewing pressure to fire and arrest the implicated officers. He says more than 50 organizations joined him in Manhattan, as well as in Albany, many boasting former incarcerated members, including those once held at Marcy.
“This is their George Floyd,” said McCall. “And they’re not going to stop until some real change has transpired. I am using my voice and my platform to join forces with them and organize with them to express their frustration and do some real reform within correctional facilities.”
He plans for several more rallies including one during Hochul’s State of the State address.
Harlemite organizer Ruth McDaniels, a retired law enforcement officer whose son was formerly incarcerated, says there are even more impacted New Yorkers who cannot directly participate in such actions.
“We got mothers and fathers who work every day, who have children locked up, who can’t come out because they got to pay bills, they got to eat, they got to do other things,” said McDaniels, founder of Breaking the Chains of Your Mind. “They can’t even fight for what they need. Those people have a voice, and because they’re grinding [that does] not eliminate the fact that they have a real voice and they have real skin in the game. I fight because that could be my son on any given day.”
Beyond firing the staff responsible for Brooks’s death, advocates also called for the disclosure of correctional officer misconduct in compliance with Civil Rights Law § 50-a. Last April, the New York Civil Liberties Union sued the agency for withholding such records. They also want more formerly incarcerated people at the table for DOCCS Office of Special Investigations, which looks into abuse claims.
Derrick Hamilton, who works with Smith as co-founder of the Families and Friends of the Wrongfully Convicted, points to current public safety concerns around the city as a societal symptom of prison abuse.
“You can’t have public safety without making sure that the people that you imprison are treated like human beings,” said Hamilton. “If you treat someone like a dog and tell them they’re unworthy and you beat them up and you abuse them, you create [a] mental health crisis. And [then] you send them out to society, people are coming home directly impacted by what you’ve done to them, and then you want them to be humane.
“How can you expect individuals who’ve been disenfranchised and abused and thrown in solitary confinement and beaten and downtrodden and didn’t come home with a place to live – going to the shelters and treated further like dogs – where you think they’re going? They’re going to the subway, they’re going to the streets…and they’re taking it out on people in the community.”
Tandy Lau is a Report for America corps member who writes about public safety for the Amsterdam News. Your donation to match our RFA grant helps keep him writing stories like this one; please consider making a tax-deductible gift of any amount today by visiting https://bit.ly/amnews1.