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Several corrections officers are being arrested and charged with murder in the Dec. 10 death of Robert Brooks, who was beaten while handcuffed at Marcy Correctional Facility, Gov. Kathy Hochul announced Thursday.
Nearly a dozen officers face charges, which include tampering with evidence, gang assault, criminal liability for the conduct of another, manslaughter and second-degree murder, the Albany Times Union reported Thursday from anonymous sources briefed on the matter. The charges are listed in sealed indictments scheduled to be opened Thursday afternoon in Oneida County Court.
Brooks, who was from Rochester, died at a hospital near the Utica-area prison the day after body cameras caught numerous officers taking turns beating him and hoisting him by the neck. The footage spurred outrage and calls for justice and reforms.
His cause of death was determined on Jan. 28 to be homicide by the Onondaga County medical examiner, whose autopsy found Brooks suffered numerous physical injuries and died by “asphyxia due to compression of the neck,” according to a court filing.
His death initiated an investigation by Attorney General Letitia James, who later recused herself because she is serving in other cases as a defense attorney for some of the officers involved. Onondaga County District Attorney William Fitzpatrick was named as special prosecutor in the investigation.
Brooks was in the seventh year of a 12-year sentence for stabbing his girlfriend in 2016.
Several officers involved in the beating of Brooks had already been sued at the time of his death for allegedly beating other inmates. New York prison overseers have also sounded alarms about the treatment of inmates at Marcy prison for years.
In 2022, the Correctional Association of New York, the state’s independent prison watchdog body, found inmates at Marcy reported a “retaliatory environment” and “rampant abuse” by staff that included physical assaults and racialized abuse and discrimination.
Pulling from that report and the previous lawsuits, Brooks’ son, Robert Brooks Jr., is suing Marcy staffers, its superintendent and New York’s corrections commissioner for his father’s death in a federal civil case.
He alleges his father’s death was caused by 15 prison staffers, primarily corrections officers, beating him or failing to intervene, and by officials not addressing systemic brutality within Marcy and the state prison system despite CANY insisting on reforms.
Justin O’Connor is a Rochester Beacon contributing writer.
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