Attorney general to form grand jury in death of Black man in Rochester

ROCHESTER, N.Y. >> New York’s attorney general on Saturday moved to form a grand jury to investigate the death of Daniel Prude, a Black man who died after being hooded and held down by Rochester police earlier this year.

“The Prude family and the Rochester community have been through great pain and anguish,” Attorney General Letitia James said in a statement of Prude’s death, which has sparked nightly protests and calls for reform. She said the grand jury would be part of an “exhaustive investigation.”

Prude’s death after his brother called for help for his erratic behavior in March has roiled New York’s third-largest city since video of the encounter was made public earlier last week, with protesters demanding more accountability for how it happened and legislation to change how authorities respond to mental health emergencies.

Another protest was planned for Saturday on the street where Prude was detained. Advocates for such legislation say Prude’s death and the actions of seven now-suspended Rochester police officers — including one who covered the Black man’s head with a spit hood during the March encounter — demonstrate how police are ill-equipped to deal with people suffering mental problems.

Having police respond can be a “recipe for disaster,” The National Alliance on Mental Illness said in a statement Friday.

Prude’s death “is yet another harrowing tragedy, but a story not unfamiliar to us,” the advocacy group said. “People in crisis deserve help, not handcuffs.”

Stanley Martin, an organizer of Free the People Rochester, told reporters, “We do not need violent workers with guns to respond to mental health crises.”