A Black man suffocated to death in Rochester, N.Y. earlier this year, after police officers placed the man in a hood, pushed his face into the pavement, and kneeled on his back for two minutes, according to disturbing body camera footage released on Wednesday.
Daniel Prude, 41, was hospitalized with serious brain damage in the March 23rd incident. He was removed from life support and pronounced dead one week later.
Prude’s death, which came two months before the police killing of George Floyd ignited civil rights protests cross the country, received little attention until Wednesday, when family members and local activists in Rochester held a news conference to publicize police body camera footage of the encounter.
The video, first published by the Democrat & Chronicle, shows four officers surrounding Prude as he squirms naked and handcuffed on the street, in near-freezing temperatures. The officers then put a hood on Prune’s head, in an apparent attempt to stop him from spitting. “Take this off my motherf-cking face,” Prude demands.
A white officer is seen pushing the man’s hooded face into the pavement, as another kneels on his back. Prude accuses the cops of “trying to kill me!” He begins whimpering, his cries becoming more stifled until he falls silent.
“My man. You puking?” one of the officers asks.
A Monroe County medical examiner ruled Prude’s death a homicide caused by “complications of asphyxia in the setting of physical restraint.” The report also lists “excited delirium” and acute intoxication by phencyclidine, or PCP, as contributing factors.
The victim’s brother said he’d called police because Prude, who was visiting from Chicago, was acting strangely. The night before the incident, he was released from a local hospital after undergoing a mental-health evaluation, his family said.
“I placed the phone call for my brother to get help, not for my brother to get lynched,” Joe Prude said during the press conference, according to the Democrat & Chronicle. He accused authorities of orchestrating a “cover-up” into the death.
Rochester officials halted their investigation into the death in April, when Attorney General Letitia James took over the inquiry. That investigation is ongoing. The officers involved in the arrest remain employed by the Rochester Police Department.
“This is not something in our wheelhouse, in our control at this moment in time,” Rochester Mayor Lovely Warren said during a briefing on Wednesday. “Had it been, this is something we would have talked about months ago.”
Protests erupted in Rochester throughout the day on Wednesday, which police responded to by firing tear gas and pepper spray into the crowd, NPR reports. Demonstrators then moved to the block where Prude was detained, vowing to stay until the officers involved in the killing are fired. They’re also calling for police to be barred from responding to mental health calls.
“The police have shown us over and over again that they are not equipped to handle individuals with mental health concerns,” said Ashley Gantt of Free the People ROC during the news conference. “These officers are trained to kill, and not to deescalate.”
A New York City protest in support of Daniel Prude is planned for 7 p.m. on Thursday in Times Square.
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