TOP COP AND FORMER FELON TEAM UP TO PASS NEW LAW HOLDING NY POLICE ACCOUNTABLE
DUTY TO INTERVENE ACCOUNTABILITY ACT WOULD REQUIRE POLICE AND CORRECTION OFFICERS TO STOP FELLOW OFFICERS FROM BEATING SUSPECTS, DETAINEES AND STATE PRISONERS
From left: Chief Assistant Onondaga County District Attorney Jarrett A. Woodfork; Ruben Lindo; Onondaga County District Attorney William F. Fitzpatrick; and Assistant Onondaga County District Attorney Jed S. Hudson in the Oneida County Courthouse after the trial of former New York State prison guards David J. Kingsley III, Mathew Galliher and Nicholas Kieffer. Photo credit: JB Nicholas.
MALONE, NEW YORK Feb. 13, 2026 EXCLUSIVE
A prosecutor and former felon have teamed up to convince New York's legislature to make it a crime for police and prison guards to stand by while other law enforcement officers assault someone in front of them.
The Duty to Intervene Accountability Act is inspired by the acquittal of two state prison guards, Matthew Galliher and Nicholas Kieffer, for killing Robert Brooks. Body-worn camera video captured them standing around while other guards tortured, beat and choked Brooks to death at the Marcy Correctional Facility outside Utica on Dec. 9, 2024.
Prosecutors alleged Galliher and Kieffer committed manslaughter, but an Oneida County jury found them not guilty after an October 2025 trial. A third guard, Michael D. Fisher, also escaped a manslaughter conviction when the jury in his separate trial couldn't reach a verdict. Instead of facing a second trial, Fisher pleaded guilty to reckless endangerment.
William F. Fitzpatrick, the Special Prosecutor in the Brooks case, called on Gov. Kathy Hochul and Albany lawmakers to close the legal loophole that allowed Galliher, Kieffer and Fisher to escape justice.
"There has to be a statute," Fitzpatrick said after Fisher's mistrial, "making it assault and manslaughter if you watch your fellow officers beat someone so badly and so unnecessarily that it's reasonably foreseeable that serious physical injury or death will occur."
The new law should "not be just for correction officers," Fitzpatrick added. "It should be for all law enforcement officers."
Fitzpatrick has been the Onondaga County District Attorney for 44 years. He is also past President of the New York State District Attorneys Association and the National District Attorneys Association.
After the trials, Fitzpatrick and his team formulated the actual language of the new law they are proposing. In a letter to state lawmakers dated Feb. 10, Fitzpatrick asked them to formally draft into a bill then vote for what he called the "Duty to Intervene and Accountability Act or as I prefer it be known as The Robert Brooks Memorial Act."
"This proposed statute codifies what is already clear, namely that there is a duty to do one’s duty!," Fitzpatrick wrote in the letter. "The Nuremberg defense of 'I was just following orders' should be as unsuccessful today as it was eighty years ago."
A similar bill, named Cariol's Law, has been pending in the legislature since 2021.
To push the Duty to Intervene and Accountability Act through the state legislature, Fitzpatrick joined forces with Ruben Lindo.
Lindo served four years for grand larceny from 2009 until 2013. After his release, Lindo was hired to lead a Canadian cannabis company. Today he works as a lobbyist for one of Albany's top law firms, Shenker, Russo & Clark, where he is Director of Gov Strategies and Managed Service.
Lindo was pardoned by Gov. Hochul on Dec. 30, 2025.
State officials have for decades mostly turned a blind eye to crimes by law enforcement, especially if those crimes are committed against accused or convicted criminals. Because of that historic indifference, Lindo thought the worst when Fitzpatrick didn't immediately charge the guards who killed Brooks—even after Gov. Hochul called for swift action.
Lindo organized with civil rights activist Rev. Kevin McCall. Together, they "threatened to bring 1,000 black activists to shut down Fitzpatrick's office," Lindo told The Free Lance News.
"Myself and Rev. McCall were going to bus a 1000 people up there," Lindo said. "We were gonna sit there until he charged people."
Lindo sent Fitzpatrick an email telling him they were coming. Fitzpatrick called Lindo immediately.
"Give me a chance. I'm working on this," Lindo recalled the top cop saying. "This has to go through the proper channels to ensure convictions."
Impressed by his directness and apparent sincerity, Lindo gave Fitzpatrick a chance. Lindo said before he started running a company that sold marijuana legally, he probably wouldn't have been open to giving a prosecutor the benefit of the doubt.
"My struggle is everyone else's," he said. "I went through the system like everyone else."
But, he explained, being a cannabis executive forced him to work with cops.
"What made me open to working with him was the advocacy I do in the weed industry," Lindo says. "We built a friendship through a tragedy.”
Now, Lindo says, Fitzpatrick is "one of my closest friends. He's a trusted advocate, an ally."
So trusted that Fitzpatrick is relying on Lindo to push the Duty to Intervene and Accountability Act through the state legislature and onto Gov. Hochul's desk for her signature—the final step needed to turn a proposed law, known as a "bill,” into an actual law.
This week, the unlikely dynamic duo got the ball rolling by reaching out to state legislators.
"I am writing to request a meeting ... with District Attorney Fitzpatrick (Schedule Permitting) and myself to discuss the newly proposed Duty to Intervene Accountability Act and its implications for our work and community safety," Lindo wrote in an email to influential lawmakers and the standing committees on crime and correction in both the Senate and Assembly on Tuesday.
The email included letters in support from Fitzpatrick and Lindo, along with a copy of the proposed law (all of which are embedded below).
The Duty to Intervene and Accountability Act would make it a felony for any law enforcement officer to stand silently by while a person in custody is assaulted in their presence if they "know[] or reasonably should know" the assault is "unjustified." If the victim dies, it would be second degree manslaughter; if the victim lives, it would be second degree assault.
The proposed law includes a limitation which requires prosecutors prove the law enforcement officer(s) who assaulted the victim acted "with intent to cause physical injury." The limitation protects officers who act in good faith from criminal liability.
“We don’t just want to hold bad cops accountable, we want to protect the good cops too,” Lindo added, pointing to the limitation.
Fitzpatrick ended his letter with a plea to legislators to make the DIAA law so he could tell Robert Brooks jr. "that his Dad did not die in vain."
Lawyers for Robert Brooks jr. did not respond to an invitation to share his thoughts on the proposed law. Da-tona Perry, Robert Brooks Sr.’s second son, wrote he supported it.
“The Duty to Intervene Accountability Act addresses something that families like ours understand all too well: silence and inaction can be just as devastating as direct violence,” Da-tona wrote. “We respectfully urge you to pass the Duty to Intervene Accountability Act and take this necessary step toward accountability, transparency, and the protection of human life.”
Mizzell Sciortino, Brooks’ third son, declined to comment on “any laws passed and not passed as of right now.”
The Free Lance News's Blueprint for Justice in New York Prisons also calls for
closing Marcy, the prison where Brooks was killed;
passing a new law requiring all law enforcement disciplinary hearings be open to the public;
passing a new law making prison health care providers mandatory reporters to an independent agency;
passing news laws creating new opportunities for prisoners to earn early release;
tweaking the HALT Act so prisoners can be sent to solitary confinement for up to 60 days for major misconduct; and
granting amnesty to the 2,000 guards Gov. Hochul fired for striking illegally in 2025.
Send tips or corrections to jasonbnicholas@gmail.com or, if you prefer, thefreelancenews@proton.me