Summary
Footage released by the New York Attorney General shows corrections officers at Marcy Correctional Facility brutally beating handcuffed inmate Robert Brooks on December 9.
Brooks, restrained throughout the 15-minute assault, died the next day, with preliminary autopsy findings citing asphyxia and actions of others as the cause of death.
14 staff members have been terminated or suspended. Some officers failed to properly activate body cameras, violating state policy.
Advocates highlight systemic abuse and racial discrimination in New York prisons, while the investigation continues.
I am a former correctional officer of the texas department of justice and this exact same situation happened and I too stood by and listened as it happened. I helped escort the man from his cell to medical. I stood by listening to the other guard talk about how much of his ass he would be kicking. I stood there as they took him into a cameraless backroom and listened as they beat that man handcuffed. I stood to stop it, thoughts of pulling my pepper spray and going in there and just letting loose. A sergeant told me to sit back down and I did. I was not physically overpowered. I sat back down, and I listened. The only difference in this is that my victim didn’t die. I reported it afterwards. I reported it to the warden, to the state, to the media. Warden tried to reassign me back under the command of the person I accused in the most dangerous part of the prison. The state sent an investigator but nobody talked but me, not even my victim. I sent everything I had to local media and prison rights groups and heard NOTHING back. No one cared. It happened all the time, it was sanctioned, it happens in every prison in this country. The only difference is that this man died and the countless others did not.
I look at those 14 names and I cannot help but feel I deserve to be on it. I was never punished for my cowardice. I quit, I say ACAB, I tell my story but I was not and never will be punished for my inaction because no one cares about an inmate being beaten by a guard unless he fucking dies.
It happened to me decades ago. My PARENTS didn’t care.
“Well what did you say to make them so angry?”
I was still a teenager, and cops with guns and nightsticks had to beat me up while I was being processed and wearing handcuffs, all because I was “running my mouth”.
ACAB
My mom had the exact same reaction when I was abused by the cops.
Basically saying I must have done something to deserve it.
ACAB idd.
But some people would rather believe that cops are always innocent than trusting what their children are saying. Fucks with my head so hard
I guess accepting the idea that people in a position of authority can and do abuse that authority with near impunity on a daily basis, to the point of straight up murdering people at random, is too horrifyingly unbearable for some.
“No, I can’t really be left at the whims of sadists and the criminally insane by society, it must be the individual’s fault.”
You should look up the Just World fallacy. It’s a pattern of thinking where people innately believe that the world is just, because it helps them avoid the uncomfortable truth that bad things can happen to good people.
Once you understand it, you start to see it everywhere. For instance, it is the basis for modern conservative social policy. It’s what drives the “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” mentality, because conservatives want to believe that if someone is destitute it is a failing on their end. Because if you accept that good, hard working people can fall on hard times, then you also need to accept that it can happen to you. And that’s a very scary thought, so many people will outright reject it.
Your mom asking what you did to deserve it is just another example. She doesn’t want to believe that a bad thing happened to you for no reason. Because that means the world is unjust, and that’s a scary thought.
Mine didnt either. I walked out of that prison immediately after and called my dad, the person I trusted the most in the world just to have him tell me to go back inside. My heart shattered. In that moment I realized I was truly alone in this situation.
“You — against the atom, the charm and the spin. Where the whole world failed — matter failed to bend to human will; human will failed to get out of bed and tie its laces”
I’m sorry that happened to you. I wish I could be something more than sorry.
This will continue because of cowardice, unfortunately. Integrity is one of the only things that separates moral and ethical action. In the moment, groupthink/mob mentality/group mentality led to conformity which is exactly what happened, and is an extreme form of pressure. Regardless of the action/inaction in the moment, integrity was challenged and defeated. One of the only ways this will change is something that will probably not happen due to conformism within the system. You lived how hard it was… your integrity was challenged, and ultimately inaction was the choice that was made resulting in net zero integrity.
As everything in hindsight reveals the truth, the inaction feeds conformity. If it’s never challenged, then it evolves into a “norm.”
You do not deserve to be on that list. You are a good person despite your former profession. The fact that you were able to realize how fucked up things were, to leave, to literally put your safety on the line to try to fix it, make you better than most men on this earth.
Thank you. ACAB (but not the ones that quit from the injustice 😉)
Edit- anyone know a guy who can get this guy on the news to talk about this case and how it’s endemic to the system?
Regardless of my feelings after the fact, I do belong on that list. I did not do anything in the moment it was required of me. Part of it is the guilt yes, but I think this feeling mainly stems from the wish that all people involved should face punishment. And if they should, then I should even if I was the only one who reported it, talked about it, didn’t commit perjury and continue their crimes against humanity for the sake of fucking health insurance.
Nevertheless I appreciate you. I expected the same vitriol currently being sent towards these people who did the same thing as me in the moment and all I have gotten is a thank you and “your a good person”. It’s producing emotions hard to process in the PTSD laden state that this news has sent me into but I appreciate the thought and I take it in kind.
As for speaking about it, I am willing to talk to anyone and everyone who’d listen. I just don’t think anyone with a platform is listening. I don’t think anyone cares. In a day or two another tragedy will occur and the only ones who will care will be those who wish to bury it and the one being buried. So it goes.
A close friend of mine had to quit the force after a few years. Luckily for him the only thing he dealt with was the guilt of having to put kids in jail for weed. He still feels guilty about it.
Admittedly once I found out he was a cop for a few years I didn’t trust him. But after hearing his stories and understanding that he had to leave because he wasn’t one of them. He actually went to college and had plans to be a detective but had to give up that entire life plan because he just couldn’t handle all the corruption and abuse.
Sucks that you have to continue to suffer because the system was broken. Hope you understand that you (and my buddy) were also victims on some level.
Reach out to your local FBI field office and tell them you have a potential civil rights case. Hopefully they will do their job.
I did. They didn’t. There’s no evidence, no cameras, no one would talk. Not my partner through training, not any of the doctors, none of the nurses, none of the sergeants or lieutenant, not even the inmate. It’s like it didn’t happen. That’s why people say ACAB. Because it is every single fucking one.
I sometimes wonder if it’s a symptom of an extremely individualistic society, would people be more willing if they grew with an ideal bigger than personal wellbeing?
Because it is every single fucking one.
Yep. None of them are on the side of justice. They’re just on their side and if you question it you might be treated as a rat by the other police.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zaD84DTGULo
Pretty much the same happened to me except there was evidenced and it didn’t matter jack shit.
Yeah this is exactly why ACAB is wrong even though all the points are right. The good points deserve a name that isn’t stupid.
Wrong. Acab. All cops are bastards. As a person who participated in the system, I was bastardized for it. I was pressured as a “good man” to stand by and listen to a man be beaten. I was put back under the authority of the man I had accused of a crime that if convicted would lead to his life most likely ending in the same facility he “guarded”. I was buried by every single other person in that room who refused to talk.
I was bastardized. All cops are. You either quit or you embrace it. And even in quitting, you still carry the guilt that you could of stopped it. At least escalated it by starting a 2nd fight. But was I going to swing on a man wearing the same uniform as me? No. My cowardice was exploited and I was bastardized alongside them.
ACAB isn’t wrong. I stand by those words and their meaning. I spit in the direction of anyone who not only doesn’t understand but goes out of their way to defend “the good ones” there ain’t no good ones. The only one who’s “good” is the one who quits and that only happens after he failed himself first.
Why haven’t all 14 been arrested on murder charges?
Well you know–they gotta investigate first. They have to get their stories straight, make sure everybody knows the script, determine a decent scapegoat to heap all the blame onto… then on game day they have to work together to ensure the fewest deal with any repercussions and then distance themselves from those people. Most of them will be fine, heck they might not even manage to make anyone accountable with proper fuckery. We’ll see! (years from now, long after the damage is done)
American prisons have been murdering people for decades, despite scandal after scandal, next to nothing has been done about it.
Yet they can move heaven and earth to go after murders of the rich.
It’s okay. He wasn’t a CEO so all good. Not like inmates deserve human rights or anything. /s
Damn, did the inmate not realize they should have called the CEO crisis line?
(Fuck Hochul)
