In an investigation into the murder of an American prisoner by prison employees, New York State’s chief prosecutor, Letitia James, released new video footage on Friday. released. The videos could lead to criminal consequences for all those involved in the attack that led to the death of a prisoner, writes The New York Times.
The footage comes from officers’ bodycams and shows shocking details about the cause of death of inmate Robert Brooks, who was severely beaten by prison staff in a prison in Marcy, a city in upstate New York. Fourteen employees directly involved were previously dismissed for the abuse, including thirteen police officers and one nurse.
It is not clear from the videos why Brooks was attacked. The first results of his autopsy indicate death by asphyxiation at the hands of someone else, American media write based on preliminary findings. Brooks served a 12-year prison sentence after pleading guilty in 2017 to assaulting and stabbing a former girlfriend. He was 43 years old.
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Eight released videos show white prison employees seriously assaulting a prisoner. Prisoner Brooks, a black man, is handcuffed and is being kicked, strangled and beaten by staff, among other things. Officers drag the man across the room, even when he is no longer able to respond.
After a while, his lifeless, bloodied body is placed on a medical treatment table. There he is undressed and looked at by other officers. Concerns about the prisoner seem to be far from the staff, concludes The New York Times after viewing the images. The videos contain no sound.
A number of officers appear to be the main aggressors, while others watch, chat, and walk in and out of the room. The nurse present also did nothing to stop the attack, the videos show.
Racist violence
The bodycam footage of Brooks’ assault is “sickening and shocking” but “not surprising,” New York state’s prison watchdog, the Correctional Association of New York, said in a statement Friday. message on Only a quarter of New York state prisons use body cameras, the organization said.
A bodycam obligation could possibly reduce the number of violent incidents, but is not a “panacea” according to the organization. This requires “systemic problems that perpetuate such violence” to be addressed, which requires a “fundamental culture change within prisons,” according to the prison watchdog on X.
The prison in Marcy – where this abuse took place – is known for excessive racist violence by officers against dark-skinned prisoners, it emerged in 2022 research from the prison monitor. Moreover, more than sixty percent of all prisoners were of African American or Latin American descent. In contrast, 91 percent of prison employees were white.
Although official reports from the state of New York do not mention racial violence in this case, it is a major problem in American prisons and among officers on the streets. Out figures of the WashingtonPost shows that police in the United States shoot and kill more than 1,000 people on average every year. Black people are being treated in the United States twice as often killed as white people, says Amnesty International.