By Brendan J. Lyons
Albany Times Union

UTICA — Court documents filed by State Police earlier this week confirm that an inmate at Marcy Correctional Facility was handcuffed when he was beaten by multiple correction officers a day before he was pronounced dead at a local hospital.

Details of the assault, first reported by the Times Union, were outlined in a deposition by an investigator with the state Department of Corrections and Community Supervision. The statement was filed by State Police in several court cases in which they sought temporary protective orders from a judge allowing them to seize any firearms in the possession of three of the 13 correction officers who were suspended after being implicated in the incident.

The deposition from Ryan Paparella, who was formerly a correction officer at Marcy and has been an investigator in the department’s Office of Special Investigations for more than three years, cites footage from body cameras worn by the officers as he described a systematic beating of 43-year-old Robert L. Brooks, whose hands were restrained behind his back in handcuffs.

The incident unfolded after Brooks was transported to Marcy prison earlier this month from nearby Mohawk Correctional Facility, where he had been assaulted at least twice by other inmates, according to law enforcement sources. The deposition from Paparella does not give any indication that Brooks tried to bite an officer — as the involved officers had allegedly claimed — or that he was resisting or being combative.

Paparella described Brooks being on the ground inside a fence near the prison’s sally port entrance.

The investigator’s deposition states: “The male was on the ground at that time. I observed correction officers pick up the male off the ground who was handcuffed with his hands behind his back. The hands of the black male were extended directly above his head as his upper torso was parallel with the ground. They continued to walk the male down the sidewalk and towards an open door of the infirmary.”

The investigator said one of the officers was shaking a can of pepper spray, though it’s unclear if it was used.

Multiple officers then stood around Brooks as he was placed on an examination table with his hands still restrained behind his back in handcuffs, the deposition states. One of the officers removed Brooks’ shoes and began to strike him repeatedly with his right hand as a sergeant and other officers watched. That initial assault took place moments after another officer had entered the room and removed an Axon body camera that he had left near the threshold of the door, the investigator told State Police.

Two of the officers “can then be seen holding (inmate) Brooks in an upright sitting position and (inmate) Brooks appears to be bleeding from the right side of his face,” the deposition states. Another officer lifted his leg and appeared to make contact with Brooks’ torso “near the genital area,” the investigator said. Another officer delivered a “right-handed strike” to Brooks and moments later that officer and another officer appeared to be applying pressure to his upper body.

While Brooks was still being restrained by multiple officers, another officer punched him three times in the buttocks, according to the court records.

Paparella said the video footage showed two officers pull Brooks up to a seated position on an exam table in the infirmary before one of them could be seen striking Brooks in the chest with a closed fist. That officer, who had been the first to start punching Brooks, subsequently put a new set of gloves on. A second officer steadied Brooks before the other officers grabbed him by his collar and shoulder areas, lifted him off his feet and dragged him to a corner and began pushing him against a wall. Five other officers, including a sergeant, were standing nearby watching, he said.

The deposition — a sworn statement the corrections investigator gave to State Police on Dec. 12 —  did not include any time elements to indicate how long the incident lasted. Another court record, filed by a State Police investigator, indicates a medical examiner has preliminarily determined that Brooks may have died as a result of “asphyxia due to compression of the neck.”

The corrections investigator’s statement said that when one of the officers had struck Brooks in the buttocks, another officer could be seen rubbing Brooks’ sternum, which law enforcement sources said had apparently been done to revive him during the attack. That was occurring as another officer entered the room and began to apply leg restraints to Brooks.

The multi-page deposition notes an officer “can be seen with his right hand on the front of (inmate) Brooks’ neck as he is laying on his back on the exam table with leg restraints and his hands in mechanical restraints behind his back as (two correction officers) look on.”

The body camera footage showed that after Brooks had been shoved against the wall, he was returned to an exam table and could be seen lying on his back as medical staff tended to him. One of the officers was shown on the video washing his hands around that time.

The Times Union reported previously that body cameras worn by some of the correction officers involved in the assault were passively recording portions of the incident even though their devices had not been turned on.

Daniel F. Martuscello III, commissioner of the corrections department, issued a memo earlier this month clarifying that officers’ body cameras must be actively recording anytime they are interacting with an inmate. Martuscello’s memo also noted that every employee “has a duty to immediately report any individual who intentionally or unintentionally circumvents the (body-worn camera) policy.”

The commissioner noted that Brooks’ death was being investigated at his request by the State Police, the state attorney general’s office and the Office of Special Investigations within the corrections department.

Read full story at TimesUnion.com