NEW YORK -- New York Gov. Kathy Hochul has called for criminal charges to be filed and arrests to be made after an autopsy report determined Black inmate Robert Brooks’ fatal beating at the hands of correctional officers in December to be a homicide.

Robert Brooks, a 43-year-old man serving a 12-year sentence for assault, died in the early hours of December 10 after he was beaten by correctional officers at Marcy Correctional Facility, an all-male state prison about 50 miles east of Syracuse, New York.

The report from the Onondaga County Medical Examiner lists Brooks’ cause of death as “compression of the neck and multiple blunt force injuries and the manner” of death as homicide, an attorney for Brooks’ family, Elizabeth Mazur, told CNN.

CNN has not obtained a copy of the report, as autopsy reports are treated as confidential medical records under New York County Law, according to the Onondaga County Medical Examiner’s office.

“The autopsy report confirms what was already clear: Robert Brooks’ violent death was a homicide. We look forward to the prosecution of those responsible. In the meantime, we are pushing forward with our fight for justice for Mr. Brooks and his family,” Mazur said in a statement on behalf of the family.

His death, and video that emerged of the beating, has enraged people across the country, along with inmates’ relatives and activists, one of whom called the incident a symptom of a decades-long incarceration system “designed to dehumanize the people it takes and puts behind the wall.”

“Now that the Onondaga County Medical Examiner has ruled Mr. Brooks’ death was a homicide, I believe the legal process must quickly move forward with criminal charges being filed and arrests being made,” Hochul said in a statement on Wednesday. “This reprehensible act of violence demands the full force of our justice system — the family of Mr. Brooks deserves no further delays.”

The FBI and US Department of Justice are already reviewing the case, and the New York Attorney General’s Office of Special Investigations has launched an investigation?into Brooks’ death.

The case is set to be presented to an Oneida County grand jury on February 10. Onondaga County District Attorney William Fitzpatrick told CNN he planned to comment after the grand jury releases its findings.

Hochul previously ordered state officials to initiate proceedings to fire employees implicated in the attack. More than a dozen individuals were suspended without pay. One officer quit. CNN has reached out to the New York State Correctional Officers and Police Benevolent Association for comment on the autopsy report.

A 2022 report about Marcy from the Correctional Association of New York, which provides independent oversight of prisons in the state, notes multiple problems at the facility, including allegations of “physical assaults” by staff on inmates and “pervasive allegations of racial discrimination.”

Around 80% of inmates surveyed in the report said they had seen or been subjected to verbal, physical, or sexual abuse by staff. Inmates reported experiencing seemingly random assaults from the staff as well as targeted attacks meted out as punishment, the report found.

The governor announced the appointment of a new superintendent at Marcy Correctional Facility and expedited $400 million to install fixed cameras and distribute body-worn cameras at all Department of Corrections and Community Service (DOCCS) facilities after a visit to the facility following Brooks’ death.

CNN’s Karina Tsui, Zoe Sottile, Raja Razek, and Emma Tucker contributed to this reporting.

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