New York correctional officers are under investigation after "shocking" footage shows handcuffed inmate who died after prison guards beat him

Summary

Footage released by the New York Attorney General shows corrections officers at Marcy Correctional Facility brutally beating handcuffed inmate Robert Brooks on December 9.

Brooks, restrained throughout the 15-minute assault, died the next day, with preliminary autopsy findings citing asphyxia and actions of others as the cause of death.

14 staff members have been terminated or suspended. Some officers failed to properly activate body cameras, violating state policy.

Advocates highlight systemic abuse and racial discrimination in New York prisons, while the investigation continues.

  • Chaotic EntropyEnglish
    6·
    3 days ago

    I guess accepting the idea that people in a position of authority can and do abuse that authority with near impunity on a daily basis, to the point of straight up murdering people at random, is too horrifyingly unbearable for some.

    “No, I can’t really be left at the whims of sadists and the criminally insane by society, it must be the individual’s fault.”

    • A Phlaming Phoenix@lemm.ee
      2·
      2 days ago

      So… My father is a retired cop who used to abuse the shit out of me and my brother. Used to brag at the dinner table about arresting people for a crime he called “POPO” (that’s Pissing Off a Police Officer). He simultaneously won’t accept that these actions are abuses of his authority and power. He sees himself as a “good cop” among a majority of “good cops”. So he doesn’t even recognize his abuse as abusive.

      So he doesn’t understand why I tell his autistic grandsons not to talk to cops. He doesn’t get that autistic people have processing delays and may not be able to understand an instruction, especially when it is being shouted at them in a high stress situation. Or that they may not be able to turn an instruction into the correct body movement. Or they may need clarification on the instruction, or like, just not be bossed around in the first place.

      He completely flipped out, as a matter of fact, becoming verbally abusive toward me when I supported my decision with some uncomfortable citations (he had the same look on his face as he used to get when he would beat me, which caused some PTSD flare ups over the following months, but he did not strike, probably because he knew I’d have prosecuted his ass). He wound up on some insane rant about Jesus and God and love. Absolute delusional refusal of the notion that someone might not be a bootlicking sycophant for every cop in the universe by default, or that someone might feel uncomfortable around a person with outsized power and influence over them and a gang of others in the same position a radio call away.