WORSE THAN GEORGE FLOYD: VIDEO SHOWS PRISON 'BEAT-UP SQUAD' KILLING INMATE ROBERT BROOKS
BLACK-AMERICAN ROBERT BROOKS WAS SERVING A 12-YEAR SENTENCE AT THE MARCY CORRECTIONAL FACILITY IN NEW YORK WHEN HE WAS BEATEN, CHOKED AND KILLED BY AN ALL-WHITE GANG OF PRISON GUARDS ON DEC. 9
Frame grab from video released by New York State Attorney General Letitia James capturing an all-white state prison “beat-up squad” killing Robert Brooks at the Marcy Correctional Facility, Dec. 9, 2024.
Dec. 27, 2024
Robert Brooks, a 43-year-old Black-American, was beaten and choked to death by an all-white gang of guards in an upstate New York prison, video made public on Friday shows.
It's worse than the video that captured George Floyd's murder by Minnesota police in 2020: it shows guards, in essence, torturing Brooks before finally killing him. Preliminary findings by the Onondaga County Medical Examiner confirm Brooks' death was caused by "asphyxia due to compression of the neck," police say.
Sgt. Glenn Trombley was the alleged leader of the beat-up squad at the Marcy Correctional Facility that killed Brooks, The Free Lance exclusively reported on Thursday. C.O. Anthony Farina was another alleged member of the Marcy beat-up squad, and was beside Trombley the night the squad killed Brooks, the released video shows.
Brooks was declared dead at a hospital in nearby-Utica several hours later, on Dec. 10.
The body camera video captures Sgt. Trombley and C.O. Farina driving from an office outside the prison to a prison entrance and walking inside. They find a squad of guards surrounding Brooks, who the video shows is handcuffed with his hands behind his back.
The guards pull Brooks' handcuffed arms over his head, pull him to his feet and make him walk to the prison’s infirmary building. Inside, video captures guards carrying Brooks into a medical examination room. They place him on a table. A C.O. identified in court records as Nicholas Anzalone strips Brooks' shoes off and beats his feet while the others look on.
Anzalone and another C.O. identified in court records as David Kingsley sit Brooks up and Brooks can be seen bleeding from his face. Farina kicks Brooks in the genitals while Anzalone punches him. Another C.O. identified in court records as Christopher Walrath yanks one of Brooks' legs, while Anzalone and Kingsley hold Brooks down. Farina punches Brooks in the buttocks three times.
Frame grab from video released by New York State Attorney General Letitia James capturing an all-white state prison “beat-up squad” killing Robert Brooks at the Marcy Correctional Facility, Dec. 9-10, 2024.
Although Brooks’ face is blocked by the body of one of the officers, it appears Brooks passes out, because the body camera video shows Anzalone giving Brooks a sternum rub—which is used to revive unconscious people.
After Anzalone revives Brooks, Kingsley chokes him—lifting his limp, handcuffed body off the table when he does. They continue to beat him.
Finally, Kingsley, Kessler and Anzalone pin a dying Brooks chest-first into a wall by what appears to be a chest-high window with a metal security screen. The guards lift Brooks’ feet up at one point, then his arms that are handcuffed behind him, both of which force Brooks’ upper body into the wall.
The guards appear to be using the wall or the edge of the window sill as a fulcrum to apply pointed pressure on Brooks’ chest or neck—instead of using their hands on his neck to choke him to death.
This was the technique the beat-up squad used to choke William Alvarez at Marcy in 2020.
Meanwhile, Sgt. Trombley and other C.O.s block medical staff from entering.
Two young male nurses stand outside the make-shift torture chamber, watching like spectators. One of them flashes a toothy smile, as the guards finish killing Brooks.
Because there are gaps in the video, its not clear how long guards pinned Brooks to the wall. But toward what appears to be the end one of Brooks’ executioners lifts his now lifeless-looking body high into the air—like a ragdoll.
The video picks up with Brooks’ body on the table being stripped by guards.
One of the last scenes the video captures is the nurses—including the one who had been smiling—standing around Brooks’ dying or dead body with be-fuddled looks on their faces, as if they were not sure what to do next.
Brooks was in the middle of a 12-year sentence for first-degree assault.
C.O. Farina quit while being questioned by police afterward.
DOCCS said it would fire Sgt. Trombley, the beat-up squad's alleged leader, Sgt. Michael Mashaw and C.O.s Anzalone, Kingsley, Walrath, Nicholas Kieffer, Robert Kessler, Michael Fisher, Michael Along, Shea Schoff, Matthew Galliher and David Walters, DOCCS said in a Dec. 21 news release. It said it would also fire a nurse: Kyle Dashnaw.
Trombley, Anzalone, Kingsley, Kessler, Farina and Walrath were identified in petitions for court orders to disarm Anzalone, Kessler and Galliher filed by a State Trooper in State Supreme Court in Utica on Tuesday. Consecutive hearings for all three cases are set for Jan. 7.
The video was captured by Axon body cameras, court filings show. The cameras were turned on but Corrections Officers did not activate them to film, Attorney General James said in a noon news conference on Friday. Apparently unknown to them, the cameras passively captured the killing and uploaded the video to an Internet “cloud” from which investigators later recovered it.
According to Axon, its body-worn cameras have the capacity to recall video up to 18 hours after an incident if the cameras are turned on—even if the cameras are not manually activated to record.
"Video Recall is designed as a last failsafe for missed evidence. With the Video Recall feature, body-worn camera footage can be recovered from up to 18 hours prior," Axon says.
The one drawback: it only works with video. Sound cannot be “recalled.”
At her Friday news conference, Attorney General James promised her office “will use every possible tool to investigate this death thoroughly and swiftly.”
However, as The Free Lance exclusively reported on Thursday, her office knew about the beat-up squad at Marcy and knew it was out-of-control, thanks to a federal civil rights lawsuit filed by a former Marcy inmate who was beaten and choked while handcuffed by Sgt. Trombley’s beat-up squad in 2020.
“I was told that they were going to kill me,” William Alvarez testified in 2023, “and they were choking me, telling me to shut up.”
For tips or corrections, The Free Lance can be reached at jasonbnicholas@gmail.com or, if you prefer, thefreelancenews@proton.me