NY Two Corrections Officers Charged with Beating An Inmate to Death
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| An 11-count grand jury indictment was unsealed on Wednesday charging two officers, Caleb Blair, left, and Jonah Levi, right, with Messiah Nantwi’s murder.Cindy Schultz for The New York Times |
Reporting from San Salvador
The New York Times
Two corrections officers were charged with second-degree murder and eight others with related offenses in the killing of a man who inmates said was savagely beaten to death by guards last month at a prison in central New York.
The man, 22-year-old Messiah Nantwi, died March 1 after he was beaten at the Mid-State Correctional Facility in Marcy, N.Y., near Utica. Mr. Nantwi, other inmates said, was bloodied, swollen and unrecognizable after the beating.
An 11-count grand jury indictment was unsealed on Wednesday charging two officers, Jonah Levi and Caleb Blair, with Mr. Nantwi’s murder. They and three other officers were charged with manslaughter in the first degree and gang assault, and two more were charged with second-degree manslaughter. Eight of the officers were charged with trying to cover up the attack.
The charges were announced by William J. Fitzpatrick, the Onondaga County district attorney, who was appointed special prosecutor in the case. The officers, who pleaded not guilty, are due back in court on May 23.
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A photo tilted to one side shows Messiah Nantwi with a serious expression on his face. He wears a yellow bandanna and a yellow football jersey with the word “Hayes.”
A family photo of Mr. Nantwi.
“As a result of the numerous beatings by defendants and their fellow correctional officers, incarcerated individual Messiah Nantwi died due to massive head trauma and numerous other injuries to his body,” the indictment said. The officers “demonstrated depraved indifference” to his life, according to the indictment.
Gov. Kathy Hochul, in a statement on Wednesday, said that all officers involved would be fired. “Mr. Nantwi’s death is a tragedy and we extend our deepest condolences to his family and loved ones,” she said. “Let me be clear: Our state correctional facilities must be safe for correction officers, civilian staff, the incarcerated population and surrounding communities.”
Daniel F. Martuscello III, the commissioner of the State Department of Corrections, offered his condolences to Mr. Nantwi’s family. His murder was a “senseless act” that no family should ever have to endure, Mr. Martuscello said.
Mr. Nantwi’s death came amid a deepening crisis in the state prison system. Thousands of corrections officers in most of New York’s 42 prisons had left their assigned posts in protest of what they said were hazardous working conditions, taking part in a series of wildcat strikes that lasted three weeks.
It is the second time in four months that state corrections officers have faced criminal charges in the death of an inmate. The other inmate, Robert Brooks, 43, was fatally beaten by guards in December at the Marcy Correctional Facility, directly across the road from where Mr. Nantwi was beaten.
Ten officers were criminally charged in Mr. Brooks’s death, six of them with murder, after they were captured on body-worn cameras beating and choking him in the prison’s infirmary.
Some prisoners’ rights groups had accused the striking officers of attempting to distract attention from the beating death of Mr. Brooks and the prison system’s deep-seated culture of brutality.
“I don’t think any rational prosecutor could stand in front of you for the second time in six weeks talking about cases that have remarkable similarities and say everything is fine,” Mr. Fitzpatrick said at a news conference on Wednesday, when asked if Mr. Nantwi’s killing was a sign of systemic issues. “It is a problem and there is a problem.”
In a statement Wednesday night, the state correction officers’ union called the indictment and the details of Mr. Nantwi’s death “extremely troubling” and said that “the overwhelming majority of our members conduct themselves with professionalism and are committed to providing the safest environment in our correctional facilities.”
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