MARCY, N.Y. (AP) — A New York jail the place a handcuffed man died after officers beat him earlier this month will get a brand new superintendent, Gov. Kathy Hochul introduced Monday after visiting the power.
Physique digital camera video had been launched days earlier exhibiting jail guards pummeling Robert Brooks as he sat handcuffed on a medical examination desk at Marcy Correctional Facility on Dec. 9. He was pronounced useless the next morning.
The governor has already moved to terminate 13 correctional officers and a nurse implicated within the assault on the incarcerated man. State Lawyer Normal Letitia James is investigating the officers’ use of power.
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The FBI and U.S. Division of Justice are additionally reviewing the loss of life however declined to remark additional, the FBI stated in a press release.
Hochul traveled to the power in central New York on Monday to fulfill with corrections division management and folks incarcerated on the jail.
“The system failed Mr. Brooks and I can’t be happy till there was vital tradition change,” she stated in a press release.
She stated Shawangunk Correctional Facility Superintendent Bennie Thorpe can be named the brand new superintendent of Marcy Correctional Facility. Thorpe has greater than twenty years of expertise in corrections however has by no means served at Marcy, “giving him experience and a recent perspective on what have to be executed,” Hochul’s workplace stated within the assertion.
As well as, the governor stated she would add staffers to the state corrections division’s particular investigation workplace to deal with complaints and direct the company to rent an out of doors agency to evaluate the tradition, patterns and practices all through the whole correctional system.
Hochul stated corrections division management has already expanded a coverage requiring employees to activate physique cameras each time they arrive into contact with incarcerated individuals.
“At present, as I stood within the room the place Robert Brooks was killed, I used to be as soon as once more heartbroken by this pointless lack of life and additional sickened to consider the actions of wicked people with no regard for human life,” Hochul stated. “Mr. Brooks and his household didn’t deserve this.”
Physique digital camera footage launched final week exhibits correctional officers punching Brooks within the face, groin and physique whereas he was handcuffed and sitting on a medical examination desk. At one level, an officer picks Brooks up by his neck and drops him on the desk as one other officer hits him within the physique with a shoe.
The ultimate outcomes of Brooks’ post-mortem are nonetheless pending. Preliminary findings from a medical examination point out “concern for asphyxia resulting from compression of the neck as the reason for loss of life, in addition to the loss of life being resulting from actions of one other,” based on court docket filings.
Brooks was serving a 12-year jail sentence for first-degree assault since 2017. He arrived on the Marcy Correctional Facility hours earlier than the beating, after being transferred from one other close by state jail, officers stated.
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