New York prison where man died after being beaten by guards will get a new leader

MARCY, N.Y. — A New York prison where an man was beaten by correctional officers and then died will get a new superintendent, Gov. Kathy Hochul announced Monday after visiting the facility.

Body camera video had been released days earlier showing officers punching Robert Brooks while he was handcuffed on a medical examination table at Marcy Correctional Facility on Dec. 9. He was pronounced dead the following morning.

The governor has already moved to terminate 13 officers and a nurse implicated in the attack on the incarcerated man. State Attorney General Letitia James is investigating the officers' use of force.

The FBI and U.S. Department of Justice are also reviewing the death but declined to comment further, the FBI said in a statement.

Hochul traveled to the facility in central New York on Monday to meet with corrections department leadership and people incarcerated at the prison.

“The system failed Mr. Brooks and I will not be satisfied until there has been significant culture change," she said in a statement.

She said Shawangunk Correctional Facility Superintendent Bennie Thorpe would be named the new superintendent of Marcy Correctional Facility. Thorpe has more than two decades of experience in corrections but has never served at Marcy, “giving him expertise and a fresh perspective on what must be done," Hochul's office said in the statement.

In addition, the governor said she would add staffers to the state corrections department's special investigation office to handle complaints and direct the agency to hire an outside firm to review the culture, patterns and practices throughout the entire correctional system.

Hochul said corrections department leadership has already expanded a policy requiring staff to activate body cameras whenever they come into contact with incarcerated people.

“Today, as I stood in the room where Robert Brooks was killed, I was once again heartbroken by this unnecessary loss of life and further sickened to think of the actions of depraved individuals with no regard for human life,” Hochul said. “Mr. Brooks and his family did not deserve this.”

Body camera footage released last week shows correctional officers punching Brooks in the face, groin and body while he was handcuffed and sitting on a medical examination table. At one point, an officer picks Brooks up by his neck and drops him on the table as another officer hits him in the body with a shoe.

The final results of Brooks' autopsy are still pending. Preliminary findings from a medical examination indicate “concern for asphyxia due to compression of the neck as the cause of death, as well as the death being due to actions of another,” according to court filings.

Brooks was serving a 12-year prison sentence for first-degree assault since 2017. He arrived at the Marcy Correctional Facility hours before the beating, after being transferred from another nearby state prison, officials said.