Remembering Tom Robbins, Veteran Reporter Who Exposed Attica Abuses

Marshall Undertaking contributing author Tom Robbins died this week on the age of 76. Tom was a mentor and position mannequin to a era of New York Metropolis journalists, and his demise leaves a big void in our occupation.

His passing has specific poignancy for me, the founding father of The Marshall Undertaking. I first met Tom virtually 40 years in the past after we each labored on the New York Every day Information. He had been a author at The Village Voice and was a part of a crew of high-profile journalists that the feisty tabloid lured to improve its investigative reporting with the intention to compete with New York Newsday, the brand new child on the block on the time. I used to be a lowly enterprise reporter and largely adopted his work as an admirer over time.

Then, months earlier than The Marshall Undertaking had formally launched, a rare story got here to us, even earlier than our workers had been employed. On a snowy day in February 2014, our editor, Invoice Keller, and I met with Soffiyah Elijah, who on the time was operating the Correctional Affiliation of New York, a jail oversight group. She shared anonymized letters from incarcerated males at Attica jail in upstate New York that exposed a sample of abuse by corrections officers. Attica was a infamous facility that had been the scene of a jail rebellion in 1971 that ended within the deaths of 43 folks. The stain of violence there, greater than 40 years later, gave the story added historic significance, and opened a door into what occurs inside our jail system.

Invoice assigned the story to Tom, who on the time was educating journalism and freelance writing. Over the subsequent 12 months, Tom reviewed investigative reviews and courtroom filings. He interviewed folks on each side of the bars at Attica, in addition to state officers and jail reform advocates. The outcome, “Attica’s Ghosts: A savage beating, a tradition ‘past restore,’” was a harrowing account of guard abuse and a failed jail system that took up a full three pages in The New York Instances, which co-published the story with The Marshall Undertaking. It led to responsible pleas by three guards accused of beatings and to New York putting in cameras in Attica and different prisons throughout the state.

Tom shined the sunshine anew on Attica, which remains to be the topic of a marketing campaign by advocates who consider the power must be closed. His reporting helped set up The Marshall Undertaking as a number one information group, at a time when the nonprofit information ecosystem was nonetheless in its fledgling state. And his story was a part of a sequence, co-reported with The New York Instances’ Michael Schwirtz and Michael Winerip, that was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting. I nonetheless suppose Tom ought to have gained!

I acquired to know Tom higher via our mutual good friend, the late, legendary journalist Wayne Barrett, one other large who mentored a era of New York reporters. Tom was at all times a delicate presence, with out pretense or a touch of bombast. He was deeply dedicated to the pursuit of justice, and believed that journalism was a strong car for change. I used to be fortunate to know him, and The Marshall Undertaking was lucky to publish his work.

Along with his articles on Attica, Tom Robbins’ reporting for The Marshall Undertaking in our early years helped set the usual for our work investigating insurance policies and circumstances in prisons. Here’s a collection of his different impactful Marshall Undertaking items.

“Why is Karl Taylor Useless?”

Robbins spent three years reporting on the case of Taylor, a person with extreme psychological sickness who died after being overwhelmed by correctional officers at Sullivan jail in New York’s western Catskills. The state ultimately settled a federal lawsuit introduced by Taylor’s sister for $5 million.

“Why It’s So Arduous to Hearth an Abusive Jail Guard”

Within the wake of his reporting on the beatings inflicted by officers at Attica, Robbins examined different instances and wrongful deaths and the way the state of New York failed to fireplace jail employees who mistreated and abused the folks they have been tasked with guarding.

“Trump and the Mob”

When Donald Trump was operating for president in 2016, Robbins was ready to attract on his personal reporting throughout 4 a long time to exhume the tough-on-crime candidate’s lengthy historical past of working with organized crime figures in New York and Atlantic Metropolis.

“The Individuals vs. Cy Vance”

Because the district lawyer for Manhattan, Cyrus Vance Jr. was among the many strongest prosecutors within the nation, and cultivated a picture as a reformer. Robbins secured a sit-down interview with Vance and grilled him concerning the gulf between his workplace’s file and its fame.