No charges in Prude’s death

Cops shown on video holding down naked and handcuffed man will not face criminal charges, a grand jury decided.

Police officers shown on body camera video holding Daniel Prude down naked and handcuffed on a city street last winter until he stopped breathing will not face criminal charges, according to a grand jury decision announced Tuesday.

The 41-year-old Black man’s death last March sparked nightly protests in Rochester, New York, after the video was released nearly six months later, with demonstrators demanding a reckoning for police and city officials.

State Attorney General Letitia James, whose office took over the prosecution and impaneled a grand jury, said “the criminal justice system is badly in need of reform.”

“While I know that the Prude family, the Rochester community, and communities across the country will rightfully be devastated and disappointed, we have to respect this decision,” James said in a statement. “Serious reform is needed, not only at the Rochester Police Department, but to our criminal justice system as a whole.”

Lawyers for the seven officers suspended over Prude’s death have said the officers were following their training that night, employing a restraining technique known as “segmenting.”

They said Prude’s use of PCP, which caused irrational behavior, was “the root cause” of his death.

The video made public Sept. 4 shows Prude handcuffed and naked with a spit hood over his head as an officer pushes his face against the ground, while another officer presses a knee to his back. The officers held him down for about 2 minutes until he stopped breathing.

He was taken off life support a week later.

The county medical examiner listed the manner of death as homicide caused by “complications of asphyxia in the setting of physical restraint” and cited PCP as a contributing factor.Prude’s family filed a federal lawsuit alleging the police department sought to cover up the true nature of his death.