On Dec. 9, several correction officers at Marcy Correctional Facility near Utica didn’t know that their body cameras were recording what soon became clips seen across the country.
The recordings showed Robert Brooks, a 43-year-old inmate recently transferred to the prison from a nearby facility, punched, kicked and held up by the throat by officers while handcuffed and on a hospital bed. He died the next day.
Sumeet Sharma, who directs a state prison watchdog group, the Correctional Association of New York, said Marcy has had a longstanding record of issues. Sharma said he saw some of the issues at Marcy firsthand when he walked into the facility in October 2022.
“It was a difficult visit for our monitors,” he said, “because of the amount of people who spoke to us about the day-to-day-life that they had been experiencing — which appeared to be based on fear.”
Sharma and the Correctional Association documented in a 2023 report that about 80% of inmates at Marcy reported witnessing assault or abuse from staff and 70% of inmates said they’d experienced or witnessed racial discrimination or bias. Inmates also said it’s common for them to be denied access to the mess hall for food and that the facility wasn’t adhering to state requirements for solitary confinement.
“There are places in the state that undoubtedly have a better environment than the environment that we saw at Marcy that day,” Sharma said.
Brooks’ family filed a federal lawsuit in January against 16 correctional officers and other staffers at Marcy, along with the commissioner of the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision (DOCCS), Daniel Martuscello. The lawsuit argues Brooks’ death occurred because of systemic mistreatment in state prisons and cites the Correctional Association’s report to argue that widespread issues at Marcy have not gone away.
“We’re going to use our agony to fight for justice so that no one has to watch clips of devastation for 30 minutes at a time or go through the plethora of emotions that I've gone through in the past month,” said Jared Ricks, Brooks’ brother.
Onondaga County District Attorney William Fitzpatrick is investigating the death. And in response to the incident, Gov. Kathy Hochul appointed a new superintendent, Bennie Thorpe, to oversee Marcy. Hochul has also vowed to invest more than $400 million in fixed and body cameras to be used in prisons.
As the Brooks family’s lawsuit progresses, lawmakers in Albany are calling for legislative reforms to prison safety. Julia Salazar, a Democratic state senator from Brooklyn, is one of them.
“Unfortunately, I'm not surprised by violence in [these] facilities, even though it is, of course, it shocks the conscience to actually see this video footage,” said Salazar, who chairs the Senate's standing committee on crime and victims.
"I do think that this culture of violence and impunity is the product of a lack of independent oversight in general,” Salazar said.
That’s why Salazar is proposing a suite of bills called the “Prison Safety is Public Safety” initiative.
Proposed bills would make several changes in state prison oversight and operations.
One bill would establish an independent entity to investigate incidents. Another bill would allow the state’s prison commissioner to fire officers directly, instead of the current process, in which labor unions representing the officers nominate arbitrators to investigate these incidents and suggest disciplinary measures.
“So in most cases, no meaningful action is taken, and I think that is a result of this process of having, of lacking an independent investigator, and instead having an internal investigation which lacks integrity,” she said. "We see a really pitiful recommendation in terms of discipline, like 10 days of unpaid leave, and that allows this culture of violence and impunity to continue,” Salazar said.
Salazar says these proposals would make sure correction officers are held to higher standards — including the officers who beat Brooks. Several of them had been accused of using excessive force even before Brooks’ death.
“I think it's reasonable to say that ... if it were law, then Robert Brooks would likely be alive today,” she said.
Salazar is also proposing a bill that would expand the state Commission of Correction, which inspects prisons. Assemblymember Emily Gallagher, a Democrat from Brooklyn who’s cosponsoring that legislation with Salazar, said that the commission has failed to fulfill its duties.
“We've allowed [the commission] to just become disintegrated by political favoritism, by a lack of motivation to actually do the work that was assigned,” Gallagher said. “And so now the state Commission of Corrections barely even inspects jails, which is one of the core functions that is supposed to have.”
Gallagher and Salazar are proposing to triple the number of commissioners on the board.
“Those people need to include one formerly incarcerated person, one person with a background in public health, one person with a background in behavioral health care, and one attorney with expertise in prisoners’ rights,” Gallagher said.
Representatives from DOCCS and the Commission of Correction, along with the labor union that represents correction officers declined to be interviewed for this story.
As for Marcy itself, a growing number of organizers and lawmakers have called for the facility to shut down. Salazar is among them.
“I don't think that the public can trust that Marcy Correctional Facility is operating the way that a prison should and I cannot expect the families of individuals at Marcy to feel that their loved ones are safe as long as Marcy remains open as a correctional facility,” she said.
