Rochester police followed training, union chief says

ROCHESTER, N.Y. — The police officers involved in the suffocation death of Daniel Prude were following their training when they put a hood over his head and pinned him to the ground for two minutes before noticing that he wasn’t breathing, the head of the officers’ union said Friday.

“To me, it looks like they were watching the training in front of them and doing step by step what the training says to do,” said Michael Mazzeo, president of the Locust Club. “If there’s a problem with that, let’s change it.”

The officers were in a difficult position trying to help someone who appeared to have a mental illness, and they didn’t intend to cause Prude harm, Mazzeo said. The hood, he said, was standard equipment intended to protect officers from germs.

The mayor suspended seven Rochester police officers Thursday pending an investigation of their roles in the death of Prude, a Black man who had just arrived in the city to visit family.

Prude, who was 41, died in March seven days after officers encountered him running naked through the street, handcuffed him, and then tried to stop him from spitting by putting a mesh bag called a “spit hood,” or a “spit sock,” over his head.

One officer then held Prude’s face to the pavement while another put a knee into the man’s back until Prude stopped speaking or moving. Waiting medics started CPR when the officers realized Prude wasn’t breathing.

Mayor Lovely Warren announced the suspensions at a news conference Thursday amid outrage that city officials had kept quiet about Prude’s death for months.

Hours later, protesters demonstrated late into the night outside police headquarters in the city of 210,000, New York’s third-largest.

Officers doused some protesters with a chemical spray and repeatedly fired an irritant into the crowd to drive activists from metal barricades ringing the building. Protesters protected themselves with umbrellas and dashed for cover but returned and were fired on again.

Journalists were among those hit by pellets during the confrontation.

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, or PCP, as contributing factors.

Police officers “absolutely” need more help in dealing with people who are mentally ill or on drugs, Mazzeo said.

“It wasn’t that long ago when New York state mental health facilities were closed and people were put out on the street, and who was the only other agency who was able to deal with them? The police,” he said. “We definitely need changes and help.”