Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York ordered that 13 corrections officers and a prison nurse be fired after the fatal Dec. 10 beating of inmate Robert L. Brooks, 43, in an attack that their union called “incomprehensible,” The New York Times reports. Officials have released few details about the assault beyond that it had occurred the day before at the Marcy Correctional Facility in central New York and had been at least partly captured on video. The Marcy prison, which was described by one inmate as having “rampant” physical abuse. When he’d arrived at Marcy, he said, a corrections officer had told him: “‘This is a hands-on facility. We’re going to put hands on you if we don’t like what you’re doing.’”
Brooks had been serving a 12-year sentence after pleading guilty in Monroe County in 2017 to first-degree assault in the stabbing of a former girlfriend, according to state prison records and local news reports. The video was viewed by his family along with their lawyer, Elizabeth Mazur, who said that “watching the horrific and violent final moments of Robert’s life was devastating for his loved ones, and will be disturbing to anyone who views the video following its release by the attorney general’s office.”