From Attica to Rikers to Brooklyn: death behind bars in New York

The detention of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and revolutionary leader Cilia Flores — prisoners of war and political captives of U.S. imperialism — inside a Brooklyn jail in New York State draws urgent attention to the racist and lethal violence embedded in the state’s prison system.

In July 2022, Ladale Kennedy was the 1,055th prisoner reported to die in New York State custody since 2014. The true number of prisoners killed by the system is unknown, and many deaths have never been reported.

Kennedy, a 41-year-old Black man who was reported to be mentally ill, was pepper-sprayed by guards, beaten, handcuffed, held face-first under running water, and fitted with a “spit hood,” a mesh restraint.

A video shows that Kennedy said “I’m sorry” at least eight times as they pulled him from his cell. He pleaded with the guards not to kill him. He told them he could not breathe at least 20 times during the encounter.

Dr. Michael Baden, a former New York City medical examiner and consulting pathologist who reviews prisoners’ deaths, said: “In my opinion, this was a death from asphyxia caused by the spit mask. They put a spit hood on, which you can see. He starts at that point, saying he can’t breathe.”

The local medical examiner classified the incident, in July 2022, as something of an official mystery: cause and manner “undetermined.”

Kennedy was tortured to death after failing to return food trays and cups that had been handed to him in his cell. Details of the killing were first reported by New York Times journalist Jan Ransom in an article published Dec. 31, 2025, and updated Jan. 6, 2026.

In a prior case that became widely reported, Robert L. Brooks and Messiah Nantwi died after being tortured by New York State prison guards. Both Black men were handcuffed by the guards before being beaten, leaving them unable to defend themselves or even shield their faces.

Robert L. Brooks, a 43-year-old Black man, was killed in December 2024 while held in a prison infirmary.  Brooks was placed on an examination bed, and a video shows that in the next 10 minutes he was punched, kicked and appeared to be choked — or at least lifted by his neck — by five officers. 

Messiah Nantwi, a 22-year-old inmate, died in March 2025 after being violently beaten by prison guards. He suffered fatal traumatic brain injuries from blows with fists, boots, and batons.

Their cases caused so much outrage that in February 2025, six prison guards were charged with murder, gang assault, manslaughter, and tampering with evidence by the state’s attorney general. Seventeen others were suspended. 

Before the killing of Robert Brooks, there had been numerous reports of prisoner abuse. C.O. Anthony Farina and Sergeant Glenn Trombly, both implicated in the killing of Robert Brooks, were involved in the 2020 assault and disfigurement of the inmate William Alvarez. In 2015, Trombly was involved in the assault of the inmate Equarn White, after which White needed a wheelchair while recovering. C.O. Nicholas Anzalone, also implicated in the killing of Brooks, was one of four prison guards named in a federal lawsuit for the 2020 beating of Adam Bauer, a non-violent drug offender.

Just before the guards were charged in the killing of Mr. Brooks in February, thousands of guards walked off the job in illegal strikes across the state, prompting Gov. Kathy Hochul to deploy the National Guard. 

When officers began returning to work weeks later, Duane Brown, a prisoner at Green Haven, said, “The abuse has been worse since the strike.” Guards had beaten Brown until he was unconscious in September.

Drawing on thousands of pages of court records and interviews with dozens of current and former inmates, Ransom identified more than 120 instances in the past decade in which guards were described as having punched, kicked or stomped on prisoners, smashed their fingers in cell doors, held their legs apart and struck their genitals with batons, and even waterboarded them  — all while the prisoners were handcuffed or otherwise restrained.

She reports that advocates and prisoners have linked the increase partly to seething anger among guards over recently enacted limits on their ability to use solitary confinement. 

Across the prison system, the rate at which staff members have used force against inmates has been climbing steadily for the past decade.