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kathy hochul
Family of Robert Brooks Says Killing by Prison Guards Must Be 'Catalyst for Change'
"We are demanding that every single person, every single thug, that had anything to do with the death of Robert Brooks be fired and arrested," said one advocate.
Dec 31, 2024
As family members and supporters held a vigil at Monroe County Jail in Rochester, New York, on Monday night, inmates in the prison cells above them flashed their lights on and off in solidarity with Robert Brooks, who suffered an apparently fatal beating at a facility more than 100 miles away earlier this month.
Body camera footage of Brooks being savagely beaten by 14 correctional officers and prison staffers at Marcy Correctional Facility was made public on Friday by New York Attorney General Letitia James.
The video, which was taken on December 9 from body cameras worn by four of the staffers, showed officers choking Brooks, one person kicking him and forcing him onto an exam table, one punching his upper body, and two officers dragging his limp body over across the room and trying to hoist him up against a window.
Brooks, who was 43, was pronounced dead the following day at a hospital. An autopsy report has not yet been released. A preliminary report from the medical examiner's office showed "concern for asphyxia due to compression of the neck as the cause of death, as well as the death being due to actions of another."
At the rally on Monday, his son, Robert Brooks Jr., said Brooks "had a loving, generous heart and a special concern for young people" and said the family's "deepest wishes are that my father's death will not be in vain."
"His killing must be a catalyst for change," he said.
Brooks' father also spoke at the vigil, decrying the actions of both the people who beat his son and of a nurse at the facility who, according to the video, stood by and watched while the beating took place.
"When you have taken the law officers' oath of honor, the Hippocratic oath, or the Florence Nightingale Pledge for nurses, but you participate or sit idly by smiling and chatting as if this was just another day at the office, while a man is being beaten to death, that's evil," he said. "Between 2016 and 2019, approximately 15,679 fathers, daughters, mothers, and sons died in state prisons. They say 47% died from illnesses—I don't believe it. After watching that video, there is nothing they can tell me that I will believe."
Brooks was more than halfway through serving a 12-year sentence for assault, which he had been serving at nearby Mohawk Correctional Facility. He was moved to Marcy on the day of the attack, The New York Timesreported.
The Correctional Association of New York, the state's independent prison watchdog, completed a report on Marcy in 2022, finding that 70% of inmates reported racial bias among staff members. Brooks was Black and the officers in the video—like 91% of the prison's staff members, according to the 2022 report—were white.
Four out of five inmates reported having experienced or witness abuse my correctional officers or other staffers, with one saying physical abuse was "rampant" and reporting that an officer had told him Marcy was "a hands-on facility."
The Timesreported on Saturday that at least three of the guards implicated in Brooks' beating had previously been named in federal lawsuits filed by inmates who they attacked; one plaintiff was left using a wheelchair after the beating and another was disfigured.
Elizabeth Mazur, an attorney who is representing Brooks' family, told Rochester-based CBS affiliate that the reports about the officers raise "questions about you know whether there's a real cultural problem that's been allowed to fester at Marcy or sort of within the prison system in general."
"The way that Mr. Brooks was killed is just horrifying," she said. "It's terrible enough to lose a loved one, especially an incarcerated loved one when the family knows that they weren't with them during their final moments, but I think it's especially hard to know that you've lost a loved one this way—to this kind of senseless act of violence."
The family is planning to file a civil lawsuit in the future, Mazur said.
Rallies were also held to demand justice for Brooks in New York City, with supporters gathering outside Gov. Kathy Hochul's office.
"We are not going to sit down and just pray, and just hope," said Rev. Kevin McCall, a community activist. "We are demanding that every single person, every single thug, that had anything to do with the death of Robert Brooks be fired and arrested."
The New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision said Monday that 13 people involved in the attack have been suspended without pay, while one person has resigned.
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'Major Victory': New Law Makes NY Second State to Hold Big Polluters Accountable
"The billions begin to add up. This is, more or less, how the states slowly and then quite rapidly took down the tobacco industry," said climate leader Bill McKibben.
Dec 26, 2024
Climate advocates in New York on Thursday celebrated a "massive win" for working people, youth, and the climate as Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul made the state the second to pass a law to make fossil fuel giants financially responsible for the environmental damages they cause.
Hochul signed the Climate Change Superfund Act into law after years of advocacy, delivering what Blair Horner, executive director of the New York Public Interest Research Group (NYPIRG), called "a welcome holiday gift for New York taxpayers."
The law is modeled on the 1980 State and Federal Superfund law, which requires corporations to fund the cleanup of toxic waste that they cause, and will require the largest fossil fuel companies, which are responsible for a majority of carbon emissions since the beginning of this century, to pay about $3 billion per year for 25 years.
The money—which otherwise would have to be paid by taxpayers, many of whom are already suffering from the extreme weather caused by fossil fuel emissions—will be used to restore and safeguard wetlands, upgrade public infrastructure, improve storm water drainage systems, and pay for climate disaster recovery efforts.
The law will "reinvest $75 billion into the communities most impacted by toxic air pollution, record-breaking storms, and dangerous heatwaves," said Theodore Moore, executive director of the Alliance for a Greater New York.
Lee Wasserman, director of the Rockefeller Family Fund, which lobbied for the new law, told The New York Times that "nothing could be fairer than making climate polluters pay."
New York state Sen. Liz Krueger (D-28), who sponsored the legislation, told the Times that repairs from extreme weather disasters and climate adaptation is projected to cost half a trillion dollars in New York by 2050.
"That's over $65,000 per household, and that's on top of the disruption, injury, and death that the climate crisis is causing in every corner of our state," Krueger said.
State Rep. Phara Souffrant Forrest (D-57) said the new law adopts a "they broke it, they bought it" approach for climate disasters and fossil fuel emissions.
New York taxpayers learned in 2024 that they would be funding $2.2 billion in climate-related infrastructure repairs and upgrades, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers estimates $52 billion would be needed to protect New York Harbor.
"On top of that, we’ll need $75-100 billion to protect Long Island, and $55 billion for climate costs across the rest of the state," said NYPIRG. "The state comptroller has predicted that more than half of local governments' costs will be attributable to the climate crisis."
Looking at the industry and its $1 trillion in profits over the last four years, one would never know that the emissions of the world's largest polluting corporations have helped rack up $5.4 trillion in climate damages over the last 26 years.
"Our future is on fire, New York is on fire, and meanwhile the fossil fuel industry is bringing in trillions of dollars in profit year after year," said Keanu Arpels-Josiah, organizer for Fridays for Future NYC. "It's high time for them to pay their fair share in New York. The signing of the full Climate Superfund Act, as youth across the state have advocated for year after year, is a critical step toward that—let this be the beginning of a shift on climate from this governor."
NYPIRG emphasized that the costs will not fall back on consumers.
"According to experts, because Big Oil's payments would reflect past contributions to greenhouse gas emissions, oil companies would have to treat their payments as one-time fixed costs," said the group.
New York is the second state to pass a law ensuring big polluters will play for climate damages. Vermont passed a similar law over the summer—a year after a federal emergency was declared across the state after a storm dumped two months' worth of rain in just two days, causing historic and devastating flooding.
Jamie Henn, director of Fossil Free Media, said the Climate Change Superfund Act "kicks open the door for more states to follow."
Similar legislation has been proposed in states including Maryland and New Jersey.
Krueger told The Wall Street Journal earlier this year that she would "prefer this all be done at the federal level," but as author and 350.org co-founder Bill McKibben wrote Thursday, Hochul's signing of the Climate Change Superfund Act answers the question: "How do we proceed with the most important fight in the world, when the most important office in the world is about to be filled by a climate denier, and when there's a Congress with no hope of advancing serious legislation?"
"One important answer is: We go state by state, and city by city, making gains everywhere we still can," said McKibben, less than a month before President-elect Donald Trump's inauguration.
"And now those other states may join in too. The billions begin to add up. This is, more or less, how the states slowly and then quite rapidly took down the tobacco industry," he wrote. "So—many many thanks to the people who but their bodies on the line these past days, and those who have worked so hard for years to get us here. This may be what progress looks like in the Trump years."
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The World’s 10th Largest Economy Just Signed on to Make Climate Polluters Pay
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul’s announcement that she would sign the climate superfund bill shows that a state-by-state approach can work in the Trump years.
Dec 26, 2024
The great question for people who care about the climate is: what now? How do we proceed with the most important fight in the world, when the most important office in the world is about to be filled by a climate denier, and when there’s a Congress with no hope of advancing serious legislation.
One important answer is: We go state by state, and city by city, making gains everywhere we still can. That sounds like small beer—but it’s worth remembering just how big American states are. California is the world’s fifth largest economy, and the energy transition is fully advanced there. Texas is the eighth largest economy—larger than Russia. Things are ripping along there too.
And New York is the 10th largest economy (New York City by itself would be the 12th). That’s bigger than Mexico or Australia or South Korea.
Which is why it’s very exciting news that earlier today the state’s governor, Kathy Hochul, announced that she would sign the so-called “polluter pays” climate superfund bill. Here’s the release from the governor’s office, in which she points out that
With nearly every record rainfall, heatwave, and coastal storm, New Yorkers are increasingly burdened with billions of dollars in health, safety, and environmental consequences due to polluters that have historically harmed our environment. Establishing the Climate Superfund is the latest example of my administration taking action to hold polluters responsible for the damage done to our environment and requiring major investments in infrastructure and other projects critical to protecting our communities and economy.
Activists have been pushing hard for the legislation. Over the last few weeks scores have occupied rooms in the capitol, and about 20 people, a great many of them elder members of Third Act, have been arrested for trespassing around the state Xmas tree—they’ve been singing carols as the cuffs go on. (Campaigners also won a big victory in Albany last week, when Hochul signed a bill that should prevent backdoor attempts at overturning the state’s fracking ban).
I’ve written about this effort before—my home state of Vermont became the first to pass it, earlier this year. But Vermont is… not one of the world’s largest economies. Its attorney general’s office is… small. Against the might of Big Oil, well…
New York’s attorney general, on the other hand, is Letitia James, who has built a reputation for taking on big players. She’s got a giant staff, and she’s not scared of Exxon. Which is important, because Exxon, and its brethren, will have no choice but to fight these laws: they cut too close to the bone. As Inside Climate News explains,
The bill borrows from the federal “polluter pays” principle, which allows the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to hold companies accountable for releasing pollution into the environment. But it strays from that slightly by applying the concept to manufacturers of fossil fuels, not all air pollution emitters.
Under the superfund act, the world’s largest fossil fuel companies would be required to pay the Empire State billions for the damages caused by their products, raising $75 billion over 25 years. Fees would be allocated according to a company’s share of emissions from 2000 to 2018. By the turn of the millennium, climate science was so well established that “no reasonable corporate actor could have failed to anticipate regulatory action to address its impacts,” lawmakers wrote in the bill.
If you think this would be a slam dunk in New York—which is, after all a blue state with essentially no fossil fuel production—think again.
Business groups have opposed it, and Hochul has been noncommittal—it passed the legislature months ago, but she sat on her hands. Which is why young people, old people, faith leaders, and the like have all descended on the state’s lovely capitol building. Their passion is largely rooted in the climate fight, but the argument is rooted in sheer populist economics. In essence, taxpayers shouldn’t have to pay to rebuild the bridges wrecked by climate change. That should be up the shareholders who have profited so handsomely. (Exxon, Chevron, and Shell had combined profits of $85 billion last year).
If you want to know the backstory, here’s a part of it, from Lee Wasserman of the Rockefeller Family Fund:
The idea for the climate superfund bill was hatched when I was at Fenway watching the Red Sox with an old friend, Rob Plattner, who had been earlier in his career deputy commissioner for policy at the NYS Tax Dept. We were chatting about the climate damages lawsuits and somewhere around the fifth inning we came to the conclusion that it would be totally appropriate for state legislatures to ask for a contribution from the fossil fuel industry to pay for the damage they caused and the adaption costs states will face for decades to come. Polluters paying for the damage they cause is, of course, a highly recognized and supported concept and it seemed particularly apt in the climate context.
We put together a bill initially for NY state when Cuomo was governor but couldn't get his attention before he retreated from the governor's mansion. By then, Biden was in office with his Build Back Better proposal, and I thought it worth a try to get it into the D.C. conversation. It found a lot support, with Van Hollen and Bernie its prime Senate sponsors, and leadership broadly supportive. The federal bill came out of nowhere and made a great deal of progress, but was resigned to a long list of items that would have become law but for Joe Manchin.
So instead they went to the state level, and put together campaigns in six states. Vermont, as I have said, was the first to sign on; with New York on board there is great hope that California, Maryland, Massachusetts, and Minnesota will come next. They’ve found outfront allies in the Public Interest Research Groups or PIRGs (Paul Burns and the Vermont chapter were crucial in the Green Mountain State). Behind the scenes, Fossil Free Media and Jamie Henn have been providing crucial comms work. And I’m very proud of all the Third Actors that stood up, often hand in hand with young activists. (A particular shout out to Michael Richardson and the TA upstate New York chapter; you can read today’s edition of their newsletter here.) In the end it was enough, even to get past Hochul who earned the ire of environmentalists earlier in the year when she (temporarily, as it turns out) nixed congestion pricing in Manhattan to avoid angering suburban motorists.
Hochul signed this bill in part because it doesn’t cost anyone in New York anything. The oil companies have tried to say it will raise gas prices for New Yorkers, but that’s not how the cost of oil works. As the Nobelist Joe Stiglitz pointed out
The specific attributes of the global oil market preclude price increases resulting from the Climate Change Superfund assessments. The price of crude oil is set by the global market, based on the global balance of supply and demand. Individual companies cannot directly raise the price of crude even if it would be in their interest to do so. The price of gasoline at the pump, derived from crude oil, is set by a combination of global crude prices, refining costs, distribution and marketing costs, and local taxes and fees. The Superfund assessment does not impact any of those factors, as it is assessed too far upstream to impact local costs, and is far too small and affects too limited a universe of companies to impact global prices.
You could argue that it’s not the most elegant solution to the problem. But as Liz Krueger, the legislator who really pushed the measure, told The Wall Street Journal over the summer
Look, would I prefer this all be done at the federal level? Yes. But the states have learned over the last few years, we can’t count on the federal government to do these things for us.
It’s possible that Exxon et al will try to get Congress to immunize them from such measures; they’ll certainly be in court arguing that it’s all unfair. But at least initially those will be state courts, under state statutes. (It was Letitia James, remember, who used these tactics to convict President-elect Donald Trump on fraud charges last year).
And now those other states may join in too. The billions begin to add up. This is, more or less, how the states slowly and then quite rapidly took down the tobacco industry. So—many many thanks to the people who but their bodies on the line these past days, and those who have worked so hard for years to get us here. This may be what progress looks like in the Trump years.
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