11 placed on leave after New York prison inmate’s death, corrections department says

Eleven staff members have been placed on administrative leave pending an investigation into Saturday’s death of New York prison inmate Messiah Nantwi, the State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision said in a release Monday.

New York State Police say they’re investigating the Saturday death of an inmate who was housed at an upstate medium security prison – reports of which Gov. Kathy Hochul called “deeply troubling” on Monday. Messiah Nantwi, a 22-year-old inmate at Mid-State Correctional Facility in Marcy, died at a hospital, state police said Monday. Although authorities have not said what led to or caused the death, The New York Times reported that nine prisoners – seven of whom agreed to use their names – said in interviews the inmate had been brutally beaten by corrections officers at Mid-State. Eleven staff members have been placed on administrative leave pending the investigation, the state said in a release Monday. “The Commissioner placed 11 staff members involved in the incident on administrative leave pending the results of the investigations which are ongoing,” the Monday release said. The release did not detail what happened in the facility. Nantwi’s death came nearly three months after state inmate Robert Brooks, a 43-year-old Black man, died after what authorities said was a December beating by correctional officers at a different prison in Marcy, less than a mile from Mid-State. The governor, when asked Monday about reports of Nantwi’s death, said it was “very much under investigation.”