Hochul Orders Firing of 14 Prison Workers After Fatal Attack on Inmate

New York|Hochul Orders Firing of 14 Prison Workers After Fatal Attack on Inmate

Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York has ordered that 13 corrections officers and a prison nurse be fired after the fatal beating of an inmate in an attack that their union called “incomprehensible.”

Officials have released few details about the assault that led to the death on Dec. 10 of the inmate, Robert L. Brooks, 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 state’s corrections commissioner, Daniel F. Martuscello III, announced the death of an unnamed inmate on Dec. 15, saying it had occurred after a “use of force” by Marcy prison staff members.

Mr. Brooks, 43, was identified as the victim on Dec. 16. He 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 Oneida County medical examiner’s office will conduct an autopsy to determine the cause of Mr. Brooks’s death, officials said.

Late Monday, a lawyer for members of Mr. Brooks’s family, Liz Mazur, said in a statement that she and her clients had reviewed the video of the deadly attack. New York’s attorney general, Letitia James, has said she would make the footage public once Mr. Brooks’s family had seen it.

“As expected, 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,” Ms. Mazur said in the statement.