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.
So what about the warden and his staff. It’s not like this culture isn’t being condoned or even encouraged at the top level. They are accessories to this and probably many other murders.
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.
They fired and charged everyone involved and washed their hands of it. 13 guards and 1 nurse is the count I saw last. I totally agree that almost everyone working in that prison is probably as bad or worse than these people, it’s been widely known that the Marcy Prison is incredibly violent and abuses inmates, as well as having a strong history of racism among guards.
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.
So many Americans believe that the inmates deserve this treatment because they are inmates. There is no compassion for the incarcerated.
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.
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.
Forgive yourself. You quit. You told the story, possibly innumerable times. Thank you for that.
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.
That’s a shame. I’m sorry you have to live with that.
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.
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?
Yep! Also, there aren’t enough people who understand that helping others will end up helping themselves.
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.”
Yeah, that’s sort of it.
But then any pleading from the victim will only make it worse, as it will just stack more blame on them no matter what they say, since the person they’re explaining it to can not accept what they’re being told.
https://howtobeastoic.wordpress.com/2016/01/19/one-crucial-word/
So… My father is a retired cop who used to abuse the shit out of me and my brother. Used to brag at the dinner table about arresting people for a crime he called “POPO” (that’s Pissing Off a Police Officer). He simultaneously won’t accept that these actions are abuses of his authority and power. He sees himself as a “good cop” among a majority of “good cops”. So he doesn’t even recognize his abuse as abusive.
So he doesn’t understand why I tell his autistic grandsons not to talk to cops. He doesn’t get that autistic people have processing delays and may not be able to understand an instruction, especially when it is being shouted at them in a high stress situation. Or that they may not be able to turn an instruction into the correct body movement. Or they may need clarification on the instruction, or like, just not be bossed around in the first place.
He completely flipped out, as a matter of fact, becoming verbally abusive toward me when I supported my decision with some uncomfortable citations (he had the same look on his face as he used to get when he would beat me, which caused some PTSD flare ups over the following months, but he did not strike, probably because he knew I’d have prosecuted his ass). He wound up on some insane rant about Jesus and God and love. Absolute delusional refusal of the notion that someone might not be a bootlicking sycophant for every cop in the universe by default, or that someone might feel uncomfortable around a person with outsized power and influence over them and a gang of others in the same position a radio call away.
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.
I can see how you would think that, reasonably, but you’re wrong.
About my mom at least.
You don’t want to believers someone can have an uncaring mother, because you want to live in a world where all moms love theirs children.
They don’t.
I’m not even 25% of my mom’s kids, technically.
Once you understand the general concept of amathia, you will see it everywhere as well.
https://howtobeastoic.wordpress.com/2016/01/19/one-crucial-word/
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.
All we can do is try to make things better for the next generations. At least now people are listening. If it weren’t for everyone having access to recording devices, we’d never be able to even hope for change.
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.
“Suspended” and “terminated” is a funny way of saying sentenced for murder.
terminated or suspended
They are being charged with homicide, right?
Right???
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)
How cynical. But are prisoners people?
(Even if they’re Mexican, black, or didn’t have at least one citizen parent?)
A Christmas miracle!!
(Jk, it’s just a coincidence - it’s an all-year-round perk … works better when there is no evidence tho)/s
I am a serial killer, I should become a police officer and get suspended for murdering a whole bunch of people
/S, of course
Direct link to the videos and names of everyone involved in this lynching:
The US is such a backward ass country. The amount of backward ass things that happen on a regular basis in all parts of this society is just too long to list.
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.
We are advertisers extraordinaire.
Well, you would think that we would at least try to a fix or alleviate the insanities. But no, we just talk about it for a few days while acting all shocked and then continue down the same road because no one can agree on a fix. In-freakin-sane system.
There’s no monetary reason to oversee prisons and LEOs that work there. The goverment is paying a business, or funding a workplace, and any violations will just cost the goverment more money. Creating consequences for police will just cost the goverment more money. There’s every reason to ignore this behavior and no reason to create controls and enforce regulations. There was a huge news story about juvenile prisons in TX where child prisoners were being raped a lot, and often. The general reaction to this news in TX was ‘‘they are prisoners, they did the crime’’ adults raping children is OK, as long as it’s punishment and torture for felons who are also children. Just typing this out makes it all feel like some post apocalyptic fever dream…
Get a rifle and train. Your chance may come soon.
How is this not terrorism?
This is just sparkling authoritarianism.
and state-sponsored terrorism at that!
When a person or small group of people blow up a federal building, that’s terrorism. When government agents kill people wontonly that’s tyranny.
Terrorism is against the establishment, not with it.
Disgusting murderers
https://ag.ny.gov/osi/footage/robert-brooks
Link to all the body cams released by the NY State Attorney General
It’s okay. He wasn’t a CEO so all good. Not like inmates deserve human rights or anything. /s
ACAB
No, AACAB
Sorry that you get downvoted, people love to make things easy and thinking about stuff as only B/W is a big one.
There are rotten people in any society. But in the US police brutality is endemic. Where I live the police don’t usually carry guns and don’t have the mindset that everyone is a dangerous offender. When they interact with you they do so from a place of respect. When i was first visiting my country we were pulled over for speeding and although we got a ticket, conversation ensued, the kind between people from distant countries who are curious about others’ experiences. We pulled away with a dinner invite and are still friends to this day. When there is a police car behind me I have absolutely no stress and I know my plates are not being run. One of the biggest complaints in my country is that cops are too lenient. So while im sure there are other countries where ACAB, i think the acronym should be AACAB.
I have seen enough body cam videos from the USA to know that not ACAB. Some were nicer than I would have been when someone behaved like that. There are public, even on YouTube, if you want to take a look. Just know that some of them get shot while being this nice, because they were not ready to shot. Another problem that results from all of those guns.
The main reason all cops are considered bastards is that the nice cop has first hand experience of bad cops doing things blatantly illegal but doesn’t report them. The moment a scandal happens, they all close ranks and protect each other.
If I see a coworker doing something wildly inappropriate, I report him because I’m not a bastard.
700k coppers in the states, the nicer ones have all protected bastards?
“Policing Enables Bastards” gets away from Sith-like absolutist language that has to be argued
I don’t get it, does it imply that there’s no way to tell a difference, or is there some other meaning?
It means there is no difference between a cop who murders and a cop who stands by and just watches the murder happen.
It’s the difference between an officer (a person charged with representing the state for the purposes of law enforcement) and a gendarme. One can add state security guards and state security soldiers to this.
In the USA the problem is with stuffing all these kinds of responsibility onto the same kind of people.
There should be an unarmed (maybe only with shockers and batons) kind of police, doing all the usual work, and gendarmes, carrying, sorry for the tautology, arms.
State security guards’ role in USA is taken by either national guard or USMC, apparently, but I’m not an American, so can be mistaken. Same with state security soldiers. No problem with these parts, I think.
They say that police also gets shot at easily, well, that’s to be expected, a weapon makes you not only a bigger threat, but also a bigger target. So police should be disarmed (except for pepper spray, shockers, batons, maybe pneumatic pistols shooting rubber bullets, you get the idea) and wear uniform clearly different from the new gendarmerie, which will be armed and will be used in cases where it’s required.
Are you a member of any minority?
