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 following 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 because of medical privateness issues. However unbeknownst to the officers and nurses, a couple of of the guards’ physique cameras have 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 costs towards six officers.
A couple of 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 carrying physique cameras. Prosecutors have charged two officers with homicide within the assault on Nantwi.
Whereas beating deaths and homicide costs just like the Brooks and Nantwi killings are extremely uncommon, alleged bodily abuse in New York jail infirmaries isn’t. The Marshall Venture has recognized 46 allegations that corrections officers assaulted prisoners in medical wings of New York prisons since 2010, based on a evaluation of court docket settlements, disciplinary information and pending lawsuits. Three prisoners died, together with Brooks and Nantwi, whereas many others have been left with extreme accidents resembling collapsed lungs and damaged bones. And prior to now six years, three girls 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 worry of retaliation or not being believed. As well as, The Marshall Venture evaluation didn’t embody allegations from lawsuits which have been dismissed.
Prisoners and advocates say guards abuse folks 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 have been so widespread, prisoners referred to as the medical wing “the torture chambers.” At one other facility, the infirmary was referred to as “the slaughterhouse.”
Many allegations mirror these within the Brooks and Nantwi killings through which guards continued to assault the boys 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 bunch of officers then beat the person as they dragged him to the infirmary, he alleged in a lawsuit, the place officers ordered the medical workers to go away, 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 in regards to 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 often instructed about assaults from workers 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 folks and workers. “There’s this understanding that medical workers is to not choose how these assaults occur, however to supply remedy and medical care when these assaults do occur.”
After the Brooks killing, corrections Commissioner Daniel Martuscello III ordered that each one safety workers with body-worn cameras should report every time 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 a press release 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 following day.
The correctional officers union didn’t reply to questions or an in depth record of findings for this story.
If an officer makes use of pressure, medical workers should look at the prisoner as quickly as attainable and doc any accidents. This often 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 most important beat up place within any facility you go to,” stated Leon Lagandean, who stated he had been crushed in infirmaries in three New York prisons. He’s suing the state for a 2018 assault within the infirmary in Elmira. He stated assaults typically 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 determine patterns in areas the place officers use extreme pressure. He stated that many incidents in a single location can be a hotspot calling for additional evaluation.
On a summer season 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 folks, huh?” based on a lawsuit Castaldo just 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, based on 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 check, stitches for open wounds and X-rays for attainable 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 crushed within the yard.
The infirmary is a busy and critically essential space in a jail. It’s the place guards take folks for medical appointments and coverings. Typically individuals are held for commentary.
Whereas many beatings started elsewhere within the jail, in some instances, officers attacked prisoners who have 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 have been reported or famous on the time. His lawyer 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 collection of seizures in 2016, Troy Mitchell and a gaggle of different officers put him, palms cuffed and legs shackled, on an examination desk within the emergency room at Auburn jail, based on 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, based on 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 have the ability to have youngsters 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 pink 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 subject. He additionally stated he would destroy the video, Hoppins testified, and the video was by no means positioned.
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 may do with out him realizing.
“It’s their world, you simply stay in it,” Hoppins testified.
The division didn’t attempt to self-discipline Mitchell for the alleged waterboarding. The division did cite him for failing handy 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 a couple of months of pay.
In a jail medical unit, safety directives can generally 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 get up for the prisoners of their care, they usually want leaders who will again them up after 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. “When you’re following these [standards], then witnessing hurt and abuse ought to offer you pause, and it is best to need to intervene.”
Tucked out of view from most workers and the incarcerated inhabitants, infirmaries are remoted, and that may depart folks weak to abuse. At New York’s feminine prisons, some girls have alleged male guards took benefit of that seclusion and raped them.
In August 2022, an incarcerated lady 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 stunning, based on a lawsuit she later filed. DeJesus cornered her alone within the infirmary rest room, the place, based on 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 lawyer representing DeJesus within the civil lawsuit declined to remark, citing pending litigation.
Officers have 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, based on the division.
New York prisons started equipping guards with physique cameras 10 years in the past, however progress was sluggish. In October, solely seven of the state’s 40 prisons have been utilizing physique cameras, based on New York Focus. There are actually 25 prisons geared up with cameras for each officer on responsibility, based on 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 have been in truth recording throughout the assault. The footage has led to requires reform, together with from Brooks’ household.
“There are lots 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 person may have instructed me that these items have been transpiring in our jails and in our prisons.”
