Six New York jail staff indicted for homicide in beating dying of inmate | New York

Six New York jail staff have been indicted for second-degree homicide within the beating dying of an incarcerated man who had been handcuffed, whereas 4 others have been charged with lesser crimes.

The beating of Robert Brooks by a number of officers at Marcy Correctional Facility in December was caught on physique cameras, triggering widespread outrage and requires justice.

A few of the corrections officers appeared in a Utica courtroom in handcuffs whereas a choose heard pleas and thought of bond. The particular prosecutor, Onondaga county district legal professional William Fitzpatrick, started to element the fees in courtroom Thursday afternoon.

Jail guards Nicholas Anzalone, David Kingsley, Anthony Farina, Christopher Walrath and Mathew Galliher have been among the many folks charged with second-degree homicide, in accordance with courtroom paperwork. The title of the sixth individual charged was redacted, so it’s unclear whether or not they have been a guard.

All six have been additionally charged with first-degree manslaughter, which means prosecutors imagine they’re criminally accountable for the conduct of others.

After among the corrections officers have been launched on bond, one man mentioned: “This isn’t justice, choose. These folks killed a Black man,” as he left the courtroom. One lady was eliminated after shouting :“Homicide, homicide.”

Physique-camera video exhibits officers pummeling Brooks, whose arms are cuffed behind his again. Officers strike him within the chest with a shoe and carry him by the neck and drop him. The video recorded on the evening of 9 December has no sound, however the guards meting out the punishment and watching it seem unconcerned. Brooks, 43, died the following day.

An post-mortem report issued by the county medical expert’s workplace in January concluded that Brooks’s dying had been brought on by compression of the neck and a number of blunt-impact accidents, and that the style of dying was decided to be a murder, in accordance with Brooks’s household’s attorneys.

Corrections officer Matthew Galliher was additional charged with gang assault. Three different jail guards have been charged with lesser manslaughter offenses, which means that prosecutors imagine they didn’t commit homicide, however have been criminally accountable for the actions of others to some extent. These embody Michael Mashaw, Michael Fisher and David Walters.

Kathy Hochul, the New York governor, first introduced the homicide fees early Thursday afternoon in a press release.

“Robert Brooks needs to be alive in the present day. The brutal assault on Mr Brooks was sickening, and I instantly moved to terminate the employment of these concerned. Now, the perpetrators have been rightfully charged with homicide and State Police are making arrests,” she mentioned.

Hochul’s announcement of the homicide fees got here on the fourth day of a wildcat strike, wherein not less than some corrections officers are refusing to enter their shifts at 36 correctional amenities throughout the state, in accordance with jail officers.

“This incident is a sobering reminder of the challenges going through our correctional system. I’ve labored with Commissioner [Daniel] Martuscello [of New York’s Department of Corrections and Community Supervision] on security reforms, together with putting in new safety cameras, strengthening the Workplace of Particular Investigations and growing compensation for our hard-working correction officers,” Hochul mentioned in Thursday’s assertion.

Hochul had ordered state officers to provoke proceedings to fireside greater than a dozen staff implicated within the assault on Brooks.

Brooks had been serving a 12-year jail sentence for first-degree assault since 2017. He arrived on the jail 200 miles (320km) north-west of New York Metropolis solely hours earlier than the beating, after being transferred from one other close by facility, officers mentioned.

Brooks’s son, Robert Brooks Jr, claimed in a federal lawsuit filed in January that his father’s attackers “systematically and casually beat him to dying” and that the jail system tolerates violence.