Entrance to Marcy Correctional Facility in Marcy, Oneida County, is seen Dec. 19, 2024.

Please don't dismiss the corrections officers who pummeled and tortured Robert Brooks hours before he died as mere bad apples. They are evidence of a rotten tree — and even a bad orchard.

The stomach-turning beating at the Marcy Correctional Facility, captured on videos released to the public late last month by the state attorney general's office, could not have happened in a prison with a culture where inmates are treated with some modicum of human decency. The taxpayer-funded killing — to call Mr. Brooks' death what it is — could only have happened in a facility with a warped atmosphere of brazen brutality and disrespect for life.

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So far, 13 Marcy employees, including a nurse and those who stood by with apparent indifference as the beating occurred, are facing termination in........

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