State officials are investigating the death of an inmate at Mid-State Correctional Facility in Marcy, which is located between Rome and Utica. The death comes amid the ongoing, illegal strike by correction officers across the state as they push for safer working conditions.

Messiah Nantwi, 22, was pronounced dead at Wynn Hospital in Utica, according to the New York State Police, who are investigating the circumstances of his death with the state Department of Corrections and Community Supervision (DOCCS) Office of Special Investigations.

The state attorney general's office said Monday it has opened what they're calling a preliminary assessment into the death. 

DOCCS Commissioner Daniel Martuscello placed 11 staff members involved in the incident on administrative leave pending results of an ongoing investigation, according to a statement Monday. Other than noting DOCCS' referral of an independent investigation to both the attorney general's office and the New York State Police, Martuscello said "we have to wait for the investigation to unfold."

Nantwi was serving a five-year sentence for criminal possession of a weapon, according to prison records.

The facility is located across the street from Marcy Correctional Facility, where authorities say the use of force by correction officers led to the death of Robert Brooks in December. Six prison workers have been charged with murder in that case.

There have been seven deaths of incarcerated individuals since the strike began two weeks ago, according to DOCCS.

This is not the first incident at this correctional facility, and according to one woman, not even the first this week. The woman says her nephew was assaulted by staff on Friday, a day before Nantwi lost his life.

She’s now wondering who will be held accountable – and when the violence will stop.

“They just jumped on me, they were beating me and beating me and beating me,” Christopher Quiles told his aunt, Ruby Rivera, after the incident Friday at Mid-State Correctional Facility.

“He’s currently at a special housing unit with split skull, broken fingers, his ankle, uh they twisted his ankle and fingers until they popped,” Rivera said.

She said the alleged back-to-back incidents represent a pattern of violence inside the correctional institution.

“It’s a consistent pattern," Roivera said. "This is not a personal plea, this is a plea for systematic change that we desperately need.”

At the same facility in 2016, more than two dozen incarcerated individuals were beaten by several staff members and in some cases, sexually assaulted. A judge in that case declared the state fully liable for those assaults this past December, around the same time Robert Brooks was attacked and fatally injured by staff across the street at Marcy Correctional.

“It’s not gonna stop until there is no way they can hide the abuse and what’s really happening.”

Despite the concerns for the safety of incarcerated individuals, correction officers have been citing staff safety as one of their top priorities throughout the unauthorized CO strike.

“I just pray for my brothers and sisters that none of them wind up dying in these prisons under these conditions,” said Bryan Hammond, a retired correction officer.