Black Man suffocated in custody of Rochester Police Department

As reported by the Democrat & Chronicle,  “A Black man died of asphyxiation after Rochester police officers trying to take him into protective custody pinned him to the ground while restraining him.

The incident occurred in March, two months before George Floyd’s very similar death in Minneapolis touched off nationwide protests, yet it didn’t become public until now.

The curtain was lifted on the death of 41-year-old man named Daniel T. Prude at a late-morning news conference today at which Prude’s family and local activists called for the officers involved to be fired and charged in his homicide.

“We are in need of accountability for the wrongful death and murder of Daniel Prude. He was treated inhumanely and without dignity,” said Ashley Gantt, a community organizer from Free the People Roc and the NYCLU. “These officers killed someone and are still patrolling in our community.”

The case also brought calls from activists for changes to policing, including an end to the practice of having police officers respond to mental health calls.

Gantt said that what happened to Daniel Prude was not an isolated event.

“The Rochester Police Deaprtment has shown time and again that they are not trained to deal with mental health crises,” Gantt said. “These officers are trained to kill and not to de-escalate.  Daniel’s case is the epitome of what is wrong with this system and today we stand firmly seeking justice for Daniel and his family, and for all the victims who have been murdered and terrorized by the Rochester Police Department.”

The death of 41-year-old Daniel T. Prude on March 30 parallels numerous others locally and nationally in which mentally or emotionally stressed people, many of them people of color, have succumbed when officers forcefully restrained them.

Prude’s death was ruled a homicide caused by “complications of asphyxia in the setting of physical restraint” by Monroe County Medical Examiner Dr. Nadia Granger, according to the autopsy report.

Daniel Prude:BLM discusses man who died after Rochester police restrained him

The New York state Attorney General’s office has been investigating the officers’ conduct in the Prude case since April and has the ability to seek criminal charges.

The officers’ interaction with Prude was captured on police body-worn camera video, a compilation of which was to be made public Wednesday.

Public disclosure of the case and release of the video could make Rochester the latest in a series of American cities to be embroiled in controversy over a police-related death and the latest focus of national attention. The most recent high-profile case was the police shooting of a Black man in Kehosha, Wisconsin, Jacob Blake, that was captured on video.

Unlike that and some other recent police-death videos, the one compiled about the Prude case is not a graphic depiction of officers shooting or beating a suspect.

Rather, it depicts officers calmly holding Prude prone and forcing his head and chest into the pavement for several minutes until, apparently unnoticed by the officers, he stops breathing.

The events are indicative of how the rules of engagement that police use can result in harm to a suspect or a person in the throes of a mental-health episode.

A copy of the video compilation and some case documents, including the autopsy report and an internal police investigation of the case, were provided to the Democrat and Chronicle earlier this week by one of the family’s lawyers.

A notice of intent to sue the city has been filed and city officials are said to be aware of the family’s anger over Prude’s death.

At a press briefing Wednesday afternoon, Rochester mayor Lovely Warren was asked if she had seen the footage of Prude’s death.

“It’s a distrubing video,” Warren said. “I can sympathize and empathize with the family.”

But she bristled at suggestions that she lacked transparency by not disclosing Prude’s death until months later.

“I want everyone to understand that at no point in time did we feel that this was something that we wanted not to disclose,” Warren said, “We are precluded from getting involved in it until that agency [the AG’s office] has completed their investigation.”

Police Chief La’Ron Singletary echoed those comments, saying several times “this is not a coverup.”

Singeltary declined to answer any specific questions about his officers interactions with Prude, but said he had initiated both a criminal investigation and an internal investigation the same day the incident occurred.

He also said he was precluded from suspending any of the officers involved until the AG’s investigation had concluded.

The report of the internal RPD investigation into the fatal encounter concluded “the officers’ actions and conduct displayed when dealing with Prude appear to be appropriate and consistent with their training.”

Joseph Prude described his brother Daniel’s death as a “cold-blooded murder” and accused involved officers of handling his brother “like a damned animal” during a Wednesday morning news conference about the fatal encounter.”

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