Mayor Suspends Officers Involved In Man’s Suffocation Death

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In this image taken from police body camera video provided by Roth and Roth LLP, a Rochester police officer puts a hood over the head of Daniel Prude, on March 23, 2020, in Rochester, N.Y. Video of Prude, a Black man who had run naked through the streets of the western New York city, died of asphyxiation after a group of police officers put a hood over his head, then pressed his face into the pavement for two minutes, according to video and records released Wednesday, Sept. 2, 2020, by his family. Prude died March 30 after he was taken off life support, seven days after the encounter with police in Rochester. (Rochester Police via Roth and Roth LLP via AP)

ROCHESTER, N.Y. (AP) — The mayor of New York’s third largest city on Thursday suspended a group of police officers involved in the suffocation death of a Black man last March.

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Daniel Prude, 41, known to his Chicago-based family as “Rell,” died March 30 when his family took him off life support, seven days after officers who encountered him running naked through the street put a hood over his head to stop him from spitting, then held him down for about two minutes until he stopped breathing.

Rochester Mayor Lovely Warren announced the suspension of officers at a Thursday press conference.

“Mr. Daniel Prude was failed by the police department, our mental health care system, our society and he was failed by me,” Warren said.

She said the officers would still be paid because of contract rules.

Messages left with the union representing Rochester police officers were not immediately returned Thursday.

Prude’s death happened just as the coronavirus was raging out of control in New York and received no public attention at the time.

Wednesday, Prude’s family held a news conference and released police body camera video obtained through a public records request that captured his fatal interaction with the officers.

Prude had been taken to a Rochester hospital for a mental health evaluation about eight hours before the encounter that led to his death. He was released back into the care of his family and then abruptly ran into the street and took off his clothes.

Prude had been traumatized by the deaths of his mother and a brother in recent years, having lost another brother before that, his aunt Letoria Moore said in an interview. In his final months, he’d been going back and forth between his Chicago home and his brother’s place in Rochester because he wanted to be close to him, she said.

She knew her nephew had some psychological issues, she said. Still, when he called two days before his death, “he was the normal Rell that I knew,” Moore said.

“I didn’t know what was the situation, why he was going through what he was going through that night, but I know he didn’t deserve to be killed by the police,” she said.

When officers found Prude, they handcuffed him, put a hood over his head because he had been spitting, and then pressed his face into the pavement for two minutes, police video shows.

The hoods are intended to protect officers from a detainee’s saliva and have been scrutinized as a factor in the deaths of several prisoners in recent years.

The videos show Prude, his voice muffled by the hood, begging the white officer pushing his head down to let him go. As the officer, Mark Vaughn, says, “Calm down” and “Stop spitting,” Prude’s shouts became anguished whimpers and grunts.

“OK, stop. I need it. I need it,” he says.

The officer lets Prude go after about two minutes when he stops moving and falls silent. Officers then notice water coming out of Prude’s mouth and call over waiting medics, who start CPR.

A medical examiner concluded that Prude’s death was a homicide caused by “complications of asphyxia in the setting of physical restraint.” The report lists excited delirium and acute intoxication by phencyclidine, or PCP, as contributing factors.

New York Attorney General Letitia James’ office took over the investigation of the death in April. It is ongoing.

Protesters demonstrated Wednesday at the police headquarters building in Rochester and at the spot where Prude died.

Activists are demanding that the officers involved be suspended and prosecuted on murder charges.


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Buddy
Buddy
3 years ago

More MAGA thug craziness by cops. No wonder there are protests!

Michael
Michael
3 years ago

Rochester police also arrested a woman for recording the police from her front porch as well as retaliating against her and her neighbors when they held a community meeting afterwards. At sone point, the police need to understand that their tactics has gotten in the way of support from the communities they proport to serve.

PaulinSaudi
PaulinSaudi
3 years ago

Well, we can certainly agree a death like this needs to be looked into. I suppose putting the policeman on paid time off is part of that.

The new normal
The new normal
3 years ago

So let the BLM thugs go to Rochester and burn down the black neighborhoods.

Nachum
Nachum
3 years ago

This is not the first time, that people call the police regarding a mentally disturbed individual, who winds up dead, at the hands of police. The cops in Boro Park killed Gideon Bosch in 1999, by shooting him multiple times. They claim that he was holding a hammer. However, he was quite a distance from them, and was not advancing towards them; the sun was in his eyes, and he had been blinded by mace. They didn’t have to kill him, but they took the easy way out, because they didn’t want to wait for Hatzalah to come. Worse, they got away with it. However, if that occurred today, they probably would not have gotten away with it.

There was another incident, around 2009, in Westchester County, whereby a Marine Corps veteran (a senior citizen), accidentally set off the burglar alarm in his apartment. When the cops came, he refused to open the door, as he tried to tell them that it was an accident. They broke the door down, and during a struggle, he wound up dead. The cop who killed him, had a number of civilian complaints against him, for excessive force. The cop got away with homicide; again, if that incident happened today, he probably would have been charged.

These homicides by cops, against civilians who are not breaking the law, must stop!