Rochester mayor suspends officers involved in death

Body camera footage shows police pressed man’s face to pavement.

ROCHESTER, N.Y. — 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.

Daniel Prude, 41, 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 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.

On Wednesday, Prude’s family held a news conference and released police body camera video obtained through a public records request. It showed Prude’s 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.

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 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 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 as factors.

ROTH & ROTH LLP VIA AP Daniel Prude was taken off life support March 30 and died, seven days after his encounter with police.