Officers were seen on body camera footage hitting Robert Brooks while he sat handcuffed on a medical examination table at the Marcy Correctional Facility in December 2024.

Brooks died the following day.

On Thursday, a grand jury handed down indictments on charges including second-degree murder, manslaughter and tampering with evidence.

Of the nine officers who appeared in court on Thursday, all pleaded not guilty. Another is set to appear in court next week, the county district attorney said.

Bodycam videos appear to show a prison officer placing something in Brooks’s mouth before striking him, and another officer hitting him in the stomach with a shoe.

At one point, an officer is seen lifting Brooks by the neck before forcefully putting him on the examination table.

A medical examiner ruled Brooks’s death a homicide.

A special prosecutor assigned to the case, Onandaga County District Attorney William Fitzpatrick, detailed Brooks’s serious injuries on Thursday, including broken bones and cartilage, bruising to his internal organs and repeated restrictions to his airways which caused severe brain damage.

Brooks “did absolutely nothing” to provoke the assault and ultimately died by choking on his own blood, Fitzpatrick said, according to the BBC’s US news partner CBS.

Shortly after the incident, New York Governor Kathy Hochul ordered the firing of 13 officers and a prison nurse who were allegedly involved in the assault.

Fitzpatrick said prison officers Anthony Farina, Nicholas Anzalone, David Kingsley, Christopher Walrath and Mathew Galliher were charged with second-degree murder, which carries a maximum sentence of life in prison. All five pleaded not guilty at arraignments on Thursday.

Michael Mashaw, Michael Fisher and David Walters were charged with manslaughter and face a sentence of up to 15 years if convicted, while Nicholas Gentile was charged with tampering with evidence, which is punishable by up to four years behind bars. They all pleaded not guilty to the charges.

Another unnamed suspect indicted for second-degree murder will surrender at a later date, Fitzpatrick said, and three others, also unnamed by authorities, have reached plea agreements.

The union that represents the officers, New York State Correctional Officers & Police Benevolent Association, said the actions of those involved in the incident were “incomprehensible and not reflective of the majority of our membership”.

In a statement it added: “The indictments and arrests today of those officers who allegedly were involved in causing Mr. Brooks death, should be afforded the same presumption of innocence that every citizen is afforded until proven guilty in a court of law.”

Several attorneys for the defendants declined to comment on the case Friday, and the BBC attempted to contact legal representatives for the other officers.

The investigation into Brooks’s death continues.

At the time of his death, Brooks, 43, had served nine years of a 12-year prison sentence for stabbing his son’s mother. He had been transferred to the Marcy prison, about 220 miles (350km) north of New York City, from a nearby facility just hours before the beating.

It comes as five of the small town’s officers – including the police chief – were arrested as a part of a probe into the department, local officials said

“This is a sad day for law enforcement, but at the same time, it is a good day for the rule of law,” Cullman County District Attorney Champ Crocker said at a news conference.

The entire police force was placed on administrative leave a day after the arrests were announced.

The district attorney on Wednesday indicted police chief Jason Shane Marlin, officers Cody Alan Kelso, 33; Jason Scott Wilbanks, 37; William Andrew Shelnutt, 39; Eric Michael Kelso, 44; and his wife, Donna Reid Kelso, 63.

The six are accused of tampering with evidence, misusing state criminal databases and distributing controlled substances to each other.

The probe started after a 911 dispatcher, 49-year-old Christopher Michael Willingham, died of a drug overdose at the police department last year.

The Alabama grand jury found that his death was the “direct result” of the police department’s “negligence, lack of procedure, general incompetence and disregard for human life”, Mr Crocker said at the news conference.

The grand jury found that the department more generally had failed to preserve and maintain evidence, allowing people who were not authorised to access evidence to do so.

The panel recommended that another agency take the lead in policing the small city because of “a rampant culture of corruption”.

In a statement on Wednesday, Jim Sawyer, the mayor of Hanceville, said the city would fully cooperate with all probes into the police department.

He added that the city council would consider the grand jury’s recommendations “and act swiftly and decisively to address the problems”.