Fresh outrage in US over another fatal police choke hold
As footage emerges of black man’s arrest...
FRESH protests have erupted in the US after a shocking video emerged of the death of another black man at the hands of police.
Body-cam footage shows officers putting a ‘spit hood’ over the head of Daniel Prude before forcefully holding the naked suspect face-down on the road for three minutes.
His body then goes limp. The father-of-five, 41, died of asphyxiation following the arrest in March – two months before the case of George Floyd, which sparked global protests – but his story has only now been made public.
Relatives revealed the film at a press conference in which they accused police of ‘lynching’ and ‘full-fledged, cold-blooded murder’.
The brother of Mr Prude, who suffered mental health issues, said the family had called the police them– selves because they were concerned for his safety after he went missing from their house in the early hours.
But Joe Prude said: ‘I placed a phone call for my brother to get help. Not for my brother to get lynched.
‘I can’t even share with you the pain that my family is feeling. Why did he get treated like an African male from 1960? You should have just set a damn dog on him.’
The footage, which the family obtained via a public records request, shows an officer ordering Mr Prude who was walking in the street naked – to get on the ground.
Mr Prude complies and is handcuffed, and then becomes agitated, at which point an officer puts on the hood – used to stop detainees spitting or biting.
Mr Prude rolls on the ground, begging for the hood to be removed, before trying to get up.
The officers tell him: ‘No, you’re going to stay down’, before one – Mark Vaughn – uses both hands and much of his weight to push Mr Prude’s head to the ground.
Another officer uses his knee on Mr Prude’s body and a third holds down his legs. Mr Prude can be heard saying: ‘Y’all trying to kill me!’ before going quiet. Officer Vaughn keeps the pressure on for two minutes, 15 seconds before letting up and saying: ‘You good now?’ to Mr Prude, who does not respond.
Nevertheless, he keeps the pressure on for 45 seconds more with one hand.
Paramedics were unable to save Mr Prude, who became brain dead and died in hospital.
A medical examiner ruled his death a homicide caused by ‘complications of asphyxia in the setting of physical restraint’.
The March 23 arrest in Rochester, New York, came two months before Mr Floyd’s death in Minneapolis after an officer knelt on his neck for nine minutes.
That led to global Black Lives Matter protests, and yesterday, hundreds of demonstrators took to the streets of Rochester.
Mr Prude’s family said it had taken months for the footage to be released, and accused the authorities of a cover-up.
Rochester police chief La’Ron D. Singletary denied this and said the arrest had been probed.
However, none of the officers was disciplined and they remain on duty.
‘I can’t even share pain we’re feeling’