NY prison guards beat an inmate to death then tried to cover it up, prosecutors say

By Michael Hill and Dave CollinsThe Related Press

UTICA, N.Y. (AP) — Ten New York jail guards had been charged April 16 in reference to the deadly beating of a 22-year-old inmate final month — together with two charged with homicide. It’s the second time a gaggle of correctional officers within the state was indicted for a loss of life behind bars this 12 months.

Messiah Nantwi, a prisoner on the Mid-State Correctional Facility, died March 1 from accidents he sustained in a collection of beatings by guards that started in his room and continued even when he was mendacity handcuffed on the ground of the infirmary, the indictment says.

Six of the officers charged April 16 had been accused of assaulting Nantwi, whereas the opposite 4 had been accused of taking part in a cover-up that included submitting false studies, plotting to plant a makeshift knife and cleansing up blood in Nantwi’s room in an effort to destroy proof. All entered not responsible pleas.

Nantwi’s loss of life got here a number of months after Robert Brooks was fatally overwhelmed on the Marcy Correctional Facility simply throughout the road from the Mid-State jail. Six guards have pleaded not responsible to homicide expenses in Brooks’ loss of life and different jail staff have been charged.

The Utica-area facility was certainly one of many state prisons struggling to operate throughout a three-week wildcat strike by guards upset over working circumstances, which pressured the governor to ship in Nationwide Guard troops to keep up operations. Incarcerated individuals and their advocates complained that providers and circumstances deteriorated through the walkout, whereas the indictment notes the guards had little coaching on learn how to take care of prisoners.

Mid-State guards Jonah Levi and Caleb Blair are charged with second-degree homicide. They and three others — Thomas Eck, Craig Klemick and Daniel Burger — are also charged with first-degree manslaughter. Two sergeants, Francis Chandler and David Ferrone, are charged with second-degree manslaughter, accused of doing nothing to cease the assaults whereas supervising.

Levi and Blair had been a part of an emergency response workforce referred to as to Nantwi’s room to assist Nationwide Guard members, the indictment says. At a information convention after the listening to, Onondaga County District Legal professional William Fitzpatrick mentioned the inmate drew the Guard members’ concern when he interjected into one other inmate’s effort to acquire remedy and was immune to a prisoner headcount.

Fitzpatrick mentioned the state of affairs had resolved itself by the point the response workforce arrived, however the correctional officers spoke with the Guard members for just a few seconds earlier than getting into Nantwi’s room.

Nantwi’s palms had been raised when the officers first entered the room however he objected to being handcuffed for no obvious motive and grabbed a guard’s vest, the indictment says. A number of guards instantly rained blows on his head and physique utilizing their fists, batons and boots, the doc says. The assault intensified when Nantwi bit Blair and Eck on their palms nicely after guards started assaulting him, in keeping with Fitzpatrick and the indictment.

Nantwi grew to become unresponsive and guards transported him towards the infirmary, however he was assaulted a second time in a stairwell and “dumped in a holding cell on the infirmary and additional assaulted” by Blair, the indictment says.

Fitzpatrick added that guards on the workforce weren’t sporting mandated physique cameras, whereas others working there both turned off their cameras or “merely seemed the opposite manner.”

Guards met at a neighborhood diner the subsequent morning to develop and coordinate a false narrative, an try at an “amateurish and ineffective” cover-up, Fitzpatrick mentioned.

A part of the cover-up concerned taking a weapon that had been confiscated in an unrelated incident and planting it in Nantwi’s room, the indictment alleges. Ferrone was caught discussing the weapon on a bodycam hanging up within the males’s room on the infirmary, it says. When he noticed the digital camera, he “uttered an expletive.”

Along with the ten guards, six different correctional officers agreed to cooperate with the investigation, Fitzpatrick mentioned. Two will plead responsible to felonies and 4 will plead responsible to misdemeanors.

Jail officers mentioned all 10 guards charged April 16 have both resigned or been suspended with out pay.

Gov. Kathy Hochul has ordered the commissioner to start the termination course of for staff concerned in Nantwi’s loss of life.

Nantwi entered the state jail system final Might and had been serving a five-year sentence for second-degree legal possession of a weapon associated to an change of gunfire with law enforcement officials in 2021. He was shot a number of instances, whereas the officers had been unhurt.

Prosecutors in Manhattan say Nantwi shot and killed Jaylen Duncan, 19, on a Harlem avenue in April 2023. The next night, they are saying, he shot and killed Brandon Brunson, 36, at a Harlem smoke store after an argument.

___

Collins contributed from Hartford, Connecticut.