A correction officer stomps on the genital area of Robert L. Brooks as other officers hold him down on an infirmary bed at Marcy Correctional Facility on Dec. 9.

On Dec. 9, Robert Brooks was murdered at Marcy Correctional Facility by correction officers employed by the state Department of Corrections and Community Supervision. That killing set off a chain of events that has resulted in correction officers across the state going on strike.

That chain included the release of video footage showing officers carrying Mr. Brooks hog-tied into a hospital room. Various videos then show several officers savagely beating Mr. Brooks as he was lying on a hospital gurney, handcuffed behind his back and completely immobilized. Other DOCCS staff looked on, seemingly complacent, some even smiling.

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That video footage was never meant to exist.

The correction officers involved in this incident thought their cameras were off, or at the very least not recording. But unbeknownst to them, there is a function on their body-worn cameras that allows the cameras to record video (not audio) even in situations where the officers have not actually pushed the record button.

Had that not been the case, the fact that a man had been assaulted and ultimately murdered at the hands of these correction officers would have, like so many other cases over the years, likely never seen the light of day.

What happened to Mr. Brooks at Marcy was neither novel nor, tragically, even particularly unusual.

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In fact, just last week, another incarcerated person was killed, apparently by members of a Correctional Emergency Response Team security staff, at Mid-State Correctional Facility just three minutes from........

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