The guards carried Robert Brooks into the infirmary face down, holding him by his cuffed palms and ankles. As soon as inside a personal examination room at Marcy Correctional Facility, close to Syracuse, New York, on Dec. 9, officers beat and choked him whereas nurses lingered within the corridor. Brooks died the subsequent day at a close-by hospital.
Attorneys for the Brooks household say the guards deliberately took him to the infirmary as a result of it lacked cameras attributable to medical privateness considerations. However unbeknownst to the officers and nurses, just a few of the guards’ physique cameras had been turned on. The footage of a medical setting remodeled into the scene of a brutal murder shocked the general public and led to homicide fees in opposition to six officers.
Just a few months later, on March 1, officers beat Messiah Nantwi to dying, prosecutors allege, in an assault that began in his cell and continued within the infirmary at Mid-State jail, throughout the road from the ability the place Brooks was killed. They weren’t sporting physique cameras. Prosecutors have charged two officers with homicide within the assault on Nantwi.
Whereas beating deaths and homicide fees just like the Brooks and Nantwi killings are extremely uncommon, alleged bodily abuse in New York jail infirmaries is just not. The Marshall Venture has recognized 46 allegations that corrections officers assaulted prisoners in medical wings of New York prisons since 2010, in response to a evaluation of courtroom settlements, disciplinary information and pending lawsuits. Three prisoners died, together with Brooks and Nantwi, whereas many others had been left with extreme accidents corresponding to collapsed lungs and damaged bones. And prior to now six years, three ladies have alleged in lawsuits that male officers raped them in an infirmary.
These numbers are in all probability an undercount of the assaults dedicated inside medical models, specialists stated, as a result of many prisoners don’t file complaints for concern of retaliation or not being believed. As well as, The Marshall Venture evaluation didn’t embrace allegations from lawsuits which were dismissed.
Prisoners and advocates say guards abuse individuals within the infirmary as a result of it’s tucked away and has areas with no cameras. Beatings within the infirmary of 1 New York jail had been so widespread, prisoners known as the medical wing “the torture chambers.” At one other facility, the infirmary was known as “the slaughterhouse.”
Many allegations mirror these within the Brooks and Nantwi killings during which guards continued to assault the lads in infirmaries after beating them in numerous areas of the jail.
At Nice Meadow jail within the Adirondacks, a trainer slashed her personal leg with a razor and blamed it on an incarcerated man. A gaggle of officers then beat the person as they dragged him to the infirmary, he alleged in a lawsuit, the place officers ordered the medical employees to depart, positioned a plastic bag over his face and beat him till he almost died. The trainer later admitted her report was false and resigned. A jail spokesperson stated the person by no means instructed investigators concerning the plastic bag. Three years later, guards on the similar jail escorted a prisoner into the infirmary the place they kicked and punched him, leaving him with fractured ribs and injured lungs, his lawsuit alleges.
“We’re recurrently instructed about assaults from employees occurring in jail infirmaries,” stated Sumeet Sharma, a director of the Correctional Affiliation of New York, a state jail oversight group that visits with incarcerated individuals and staff. “There’s this understanding that medical employees is to not decide how these assaults occur, however to supply therapy and medical care when these assaults do occur.”
After the Brooks killing, corrections Commissioner Daniel Martuscello III ordered that each one safety employees with body-worn cameras should document at any time when they’re round prisoners, together with in medical settings. “It’s on us to create a tradition that isn’t primarily based in violence and respects the lives of everybody in our care,” Martuscello stated in an announcement to The Marshall Venture.
A nonetheless picture from physique digital camera video of the beating of Robert Brooks in an infirmary at Marcy Correctional Facility on Dec. 9, 2024. Brooks died the subsequent day.
The correctional officers union didn’t reply to questions or an in depth listing of findings for this story.
If an officer makes use of power, medical employees should look at the prisoner as quickly as potential and doc any accidents. This normally means a visit to the infirmary. However in instances The Marshall Venture reviewed, violence that begins elsewhere within the jail continues and even escalates as soon as an individual is inside one of many comparatively secluded rooms inside the medical unit.
“The infirmary is the largest beat up place inside any facility you go to,” stated Leon Lagandean, who stated he had been overwhelmed in infirmaries in three New York prisons. He’s suing the state for a 2018 assault within the infirmary in Elmira. He stated assaults usually occur in infirmaries as a result of they’re one of many few areas with out cameras.
A jail spokesperson stated the division is utilizing new software program and hiring analysts to establish patterns in areas the place officers use extreme power. He stated that many incidents in a single location can be a hotspot calling for additional evaluation.
On a summer time night in 2023, two guards stopped Michael Castaldo, who was incarcerated at Groveland Correctional Facility, whereas he walked throughout the yard to choose up mail. Castaldo stated he had ran into one of many guards the day earlier than in his dorm. On the yard, that guard whispered, “So, you want bumping into individuals, huh?” in response to a lawsuit Castaldo lately filed.
The guards then knocked Castaldo to the bottom. Three different officers joined the fray, and commenced kicking and punching Castaldo and placing him with batons. They handcuffed him and pepper sprayed him earlier than taking him to the infirmary.
There, handcuffed on a gurney in an examination room, a sergeant and one other guard continued the assault, in response to his lawsuit, punching and slapping him within the presence of a nurse.
Castaldo stated the beating left him with extreme listening to loss in his left ear; he stated the jail didn’t reply to his repeated requests for a listening to take a look at, stitches for open wounds and X-rays for potential damaged ribs. A division spokesperson stated investigators didn’t look into whether or not guards assaulted Castaldo within the infirmary as a result of he solely reported being overwhelmed within the yard.
The infirmary is a busy and critically vital space in a jail. It’s the place guards take individuals for medical appointments and coverings. Generally persons are held for statement.
Whereas many beatings started elsewhere within the jail, in some instances, officers attacked prisoners who had been already within the infirmary looking for medical consideration.
When an incarcerated man went to the medical unit at Sullivan Correctional Facility in 2022 with chest ache, officers pepper sprayed and assaulted him, he alleged in a lawsuit, dislocating his jaw and inflicting everlasting listening to loss. The division stated that no accidents to the person had been reported or famous on the time. His legal professional stated that’s as a result of he wasn’t given the chance to report his accidents. The division additionally asserted the person wasn’t following directions and was pepper sprayed and restrained after he lunged at officers.
After Matthew Raymond had a sequence of seizures in 2016, Troy Mitchell and a bunch of different officers put him, palms cuffed and legs shackled, on an examination desk within the emergency room at Auburn jail, in response to a lawsuit filed by Raymond. Mitchell then ordered the nurse, Aimee Hoppins, out of the room.
Mitchell pulled Raymond’s shirt over his face, held his head down and slowly poured a bucket of water over his mouth and nostril, in response to the lawsuit. Raymond testified that Mitchell then punched him within the face and neck, and beat him within the groin with a baton whereas different officers held his legs open.
Raymond suffered everlasting accidents to his genitals and bladder from the assault. He underwent surgical procedure to reconstruct his bladder and should by no means be capable of have children once more. The state settled with Raymond for $1.2 million.
Nurse Hoppins examined Raymond after the assault and famous accidents to his face and crimson marks on his physique, however he had on boxers and he or she didn’t look at his genitals, she testified.
Hoppins testified within the case that Mitchell instructed her he was going to place in his paperwork that Raymond injured his face throughout a seizure. However Mitchell had proven Hoppins video that contradicted that story, and when she requested about it, he instructed her it wasn’t her enterprise because it was a safety difficulty. He additionally stated he would destroy the video, Hoppins testified, and the video was by no means situated.
Hoppins felt powerless to report Mitchell, she later testified. He’d been sexually harassing her for years, and he was in her chain of command, she stated, so there was nothing she might do with out him figuring out.
“It’s their world, you simply reside in it,” Hoppins testified.
The division didn’t attempt to self-discipline Mitchell for the alleged waterboarding. The division did cite him for failing at hand in his state-issued handgun and for emptying a canister of pepper spray level clean into the eyes of one other prisoner within the infirmary, a case the state settled for $100,000. Mitchell agreed to retire and forfeit just a few months of pay.
In a jail medical unit, safety directives can typically get precedence over well being wants, specialists say, and nurses don’t have the independence they’d have in different medical environments.
Regardless of these challenges, nurses ought to arise for the prisoners of their care, and so they want leaders who will again them up once they do, stated Mary Muse, a jail well being care guide and former director of nursing for the Wisconsin Division of Corrections.
“Our position is advocacy for the affected person,” Muse stated. “We’re given a license. We owe an obligation to the general public,” and a part of that responsibility is following the ethics and requirements of nursing. “In the event you’re following these [standards], then witnessing hurt and abuse ought to provide you with pause, and it is best to wish to intervene.”
Tucked out of view from most employees and the incarcerated inhabitants, infirmaries are remoted, and that may go away individuals weak to abuse. At New York’s feminine prisons, some ladies have alleged male guards took benefit of that seclusion and raped them.
In August 2022, an incarcerated girl was working her job as a porter within the infirmary at Albion jail, close to Lake Ontario. Supervising the infirmary that day was Jonathan DeJesus, who adopted her round, groping her and telling her she was lovely, in response to a lawsuit she later filed. DeJesus cornered her alone within the infirmary rest room, the place, in response to the lawsuit, he raped her. She saved the proof in a tampon and reported the assault. DeJesus was later convicted and sentenced to 6 months in jail. An legal professional representing DeJesus within the civil lawsuit declined to remark, citing pending litigation.
Officers had been required to make use of physique cameras at Albion in areas of the jail with out wall cameras, a division spokesperson stated. DeJesus wasn’t issued one which day. Albion had a restricted variety of functioning physique cameras on the time, in response to the division.
New York prisons started equipping guards with physique cameras 10 years in the past, however progress was gradual. In October, solely seven of the state’s 40 prisons had been utilizing physique cameras, in response to New York Focus. There at the moment are 25 prisons outfitted with cameras for each officer on responsibility, in response to the company.
Within the beating dying of Brooks, the officers could have thought the infirmary afforded them privateness, since they by no means activated their physique cameras. However a few of their cameras had been in reality recording in the course of the assault. The footage has led to requires reform, together with from Brooks’ household.
“There are quite a lot of atrocities that happen within the prisons,” Brooks’ father, Robert Ricks, instructed New York lawmakers throughout a February listening to. “And previous to my son being murdered, and me seeing it on TV, no one might have instructed me that these items had been transpiring in our jails and in our prisons.”
