ROCHESTER, N.Y. – As a special prosecutor investigates the death of a Greece man beaten by officers at Marcy Correctional Facility, jails and prisons across New York State are taking a close look at their own policies and procedures.

Robert Brooks died on December 10^th, hours after being beaten inside the state prison.  13 corrections officers and 1 nurse were seen on body worn camera video either participating in the beating or doing nothing to stop it. 

News10NBC Investigative Reporter Jennifer Lewke sat down with Monroe County Sheriff Todd Baxter to see whether this incident has changed anything inside the Monroe County Jail which houses anywhere from 7-800 inmates on any given day. 

Jennifer Lewke, News10NBC:  “What was your reaction when you saw that body-worn camera video from Marcy?”

Sheriff Todd Baxter:  “You have a culture problem, you have murder in my eyes, you have murder so, you’ve got penal charges but really… what caused people to swear an oath to our constitution at one time, to wear a uniform to house inmates, that’s their job description to keep them safe and secure, to cause that type of action?”

Jennifer Lewke: “Does a situation like this, cause you as the Sheriff here in Monroe County to say, “let’s take a step back and let’s look at what our policies are, what our culture is and make sure that we’re treating people as humanly as we can?””

Sheriff Todd Baxter: “Yes, absolutely… I take this very personal, the safety and security of the jail. My staff, there’s great deputies in there doing it right and when we find something that goes wrong, we deal with it. We’re humans there’s nothing perfect and the idea is when you identify the little things and nip it in the bud, it keeps them from growing into big cultural things.”

Monroe County Jail deputies do not currently wear body cameras but their supervisors do, the Sheriff says that may change in the future. While there is a network of dozens of cameras in the jail that are watched 24/7, they don’t cover every square inch of the facility.

Jennifer Lewke: “If there is an inmate in your jail that says, “I have been treated wrong by a jail guard or by an inmate,” what is the chain of command, can they talk to you? Or, who do they talk to and how do they get there?”

Sheriff Todd Baxter: “Yea, so there’s several steps. We take those seriously and the grievances go through a formal process, they get to the superintendent level and he’s got to authenticate what he did with that grievance and when you start looking at repeated grievances, that’s where your smoke and fire could possibly be so you take advantage of those early warning systems.”

Jennifer Lewke: “Have you seen an increase in calls or complaints from inmates or their families since the Marcy situation?”

Sheriff Todd Baxter: “I expected it, I haven’t seen the number increase.”

Sheriff Baxter recently suspended three of his Jail Deputies after a complaint about guards not stepping in to stop fights between two inmates.  That investigation was initiated and made public prior to Robert Brook’s death at Marcy Correctional. 

Jennifer Lewke:  “What can you tell me about the status of that investigation?

Sheriff Todd Baxter: “We had a command officer, command level officer walking the hallways and walking the jail cells and had an interaction with an inmate and had a conversation, has that trust… that’s how we try to run our jail and expressed some frustrations about some things that were occurring.  That supervisor went back and investigated it, verified some of the information and brought that information to me and that’s where I made my decision that a couple of employees had to be suspended while we conduct our criminal investigation and our internal investigation. When the facts are laid on my table, I deal with it…I’ve asked the investigators to go back a whole year and look at everything related to this and see if there is any commonalities, see if it’s a bigger picture and if it is, we’ll deal with it.”

*A.I. assisted with the formatting of this story. Click here to see how WHEC News 10 uses A.I.*