ALBANY — The state Department of Corrections and Community Supervision is moving to make permanent updates to its policies governing the use of body cameras after several officers and their supervisors had their devices turned off during an incident at Marcy Correctional Facility last month in which inmate Robert L. Brooks died after he was beaten while handcuffed.
The death of Brooks, which is the focus of an ongoing criminal investigation by State Police and the Onondaga County District Attorney’s Office, exposed the apparently rampant violations of the department’s policy governing the use of body-worn cameras — as well as supervisors’ failure to enforce the rules.
While body cameras were deployed at Marcy state prison last May, the department has been slowly deploying the devices at prisons since 2017, when New York launched a pilot program seeking to become the first state to equip its correctional staff with the equipment…