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.

  • @CascadianGiraffe
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    412 days ago

    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

    • @Dasus
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      91 day ago

      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

      • @PM_Your_Nudes_Please
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        14 hours ago

        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.

        • @Dasus
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          111 hours ago

          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/

      • Chaotic Entropy
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        1 day ago

        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.”

        • A Phlaming Phoenix
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          25 hours ago

          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.

    • @SmilingSolaris
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      202 days ago

      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.

      • @CascadianGiraffe
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        92 days ago

        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.