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New York|Harrowing Video Shows Inmate’s Death and the Halting Effort to Save Him
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/18/nyregion/oneida-jail-video-inmate-death-lawsuit.html
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Nurses and guards in Oneida County, N.Y., cracked wise and complained about poor equipment as Antwan Cater lay unconscious in a drug-induced seizure. His father has filed a lawsuit in the case.
Nov. 18, 2025Updated 5:25 p.m. ET
Video recorded inside the Oneida County Correctional Facility in upstate New York last year shows nurses and corrections officers crowding into an infirmary cell after a crucial minutes-long delay, criticizing faulty equipment and cracking jokes about their efforts as they administer CPR to an inmate dying on the floor.
The body camera footage, which has been reviewed by The New York Times, showed the minutes before the man, Antwan Cater, 25, was pronounced dead from a synthetic-marijuana-induced seizure in February 2024. The recordings are the latest in a series of videos that have given the public a view into deaths in New York jails and prisons this year.
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A federal lawsuit in the case, filed by Mr. Cater’s father, Terry Watson, in the Northern District of New York, names the county, the medical provider Wellpath Holdings Inc. and 10 nurses and corrections officers as defendants. Mr. Cater’s death was a result of the staff’s “negligence and medical malpractice,” according to the suit.
“Each minute they did nothing to help Antwan, the probability of his survival dropped significantly,” Mr. Watson’s lawyers wrote. “By first ignoring Antwan’s seizure and then standing around idly for minutes, the correction officers and medical staff sealed Antwan’s fate.”
On Monday, a lawyer for Oneida County, Maryangela Scalzo, said it would not comment on a pending case. Representatives for the county, about 250 miles northwest of New York City, did not answer questions about its own internal investigation or say whether the employees named in the suit were on staff. A union for corrections officers, the New York State Correctional Officers & Police Benevolent Association, had no comment on the case.
