There is little utility or even justice in comparing homicides, but it is a hard thing to avoid in the cases of Robert L. Brooks and Messiah Nantwi, two Black men beaten to death by gangs of prison guards less than three months apart at New York correctional facilities that sit side by side in Oneida County.

This editorial board has written before about the killing of Mr. Brooks, scenes of which were captured by body cameras worn by the corrections officers who were doling out the violence at Marcy Correctional Facility on the evening of Dec. 9. There are, however, no video clips of the fatal beating served up to Mr. Nantwi on March 1 at Mid-State Correctional Facility.

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That absence of body-cam evidence,........

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