Top cops retiring
Police officials in Rochester to retire amid criticism in Prude death. Section 1,
ROCHESTER, N.Y. — The police chief in New York’s third-largest city and several of his department’s highest ranking officials resigned Tuesday in the aftermath of the death of Daniel Prude, a Black man who suffocated after he had been placed in a “spit hood” by police officers and pinned to the ground.
The retirements of the police chief, La’Ron Singletary, the deputy chief, Joseph Morabito, and, according to Mayor Lovely Warren, others in the department, came three days after state Attorney General Letitia James announced she would impanel a grand jury to consider evidence in Prude’s death.
“As a man of integrity, I will not sit idly by while outside entities attempt to destroy my character,” Singletary said in a statement. He later added: “The mischaracterization and the politicization of the actions that I took after being informed of Mr. Prude’s death is not based on facts, and is not what I stand for.”
Prude’s family filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday alleging the police department sought to cover up the true nature of Prude’s death.
In the lawsuit, Prude’s family alleged that it took more than 90 seconds for officers to notice he had stopped breathing because they were chatting and making jokes at his expense. Prude’s sister, Tameshay, filed the lawsuit as executor of his estate and named the city of Rochester, Singletary and officers involved in the arrest as defendants.
The lawsuit argues officers used force against Prude at a time when he “obviously posed no threat to the safety of the officers or anyone else.”
“Mr. Prude was in the midst of an acute, manic, psychotic episode,” the lawsuit states. “Mr. Prude was unarmed, naked and suffering. He needed help.”
Officials in Rochester had not publicly disclosed the death of Prude, 41, until a public records request by his family revealed officers’ body camera footage showing his struggle, naked and hooded, to the public for the first time. Prude’s family in recent days has accused officials of covering up his death to protect the police officers involved.
Singletary denied any wrongdoing on the part of the officers, even as seven were suspended last week. Police union officials have said the seven officers were following their training.
As recently as Sunday, Singletary vowed to work to improve community relations in the department “to prevent this from ever happening again.”
Singletary, who spent his entire career inside the Rochester Police Department, was appointed chief in April 2019. He will stay on through the end of the month, Warren said.
Warren announced the departures in a video call to the Rochester City Council. “The entire Rochester Police Department command staff has announced their retirement,” she said. The mayor said she had not requested the resignation.
The resignations are the latest development in an explosive week in Rochester since the release of the body camera footage and the revelation, in stark images, of Prude’s encounter with the police.
Prude arrived in Rochester by train from Chicago and to his brother’s home March 22. He was behaving so erratically, paranoid and hallucinating, that his brother, Joe Prude, had him admitted to a hospital for evaluation. But Daniel Prude was released hours later, and early on the morning of March 23, he bolted from the home and into the streets.
Officers found him naked and ranting; a witness said he heard Prude claim he had the coronavirus, then on the sharp rise in New York. He was handcuffed without incident, seated in the street.
But when he began spitting and ignored orders to stop, officers pulled a “spit hood” over his head.
Prude became agitated and tried to rise, and officers restrained him by pushing his head into the street and placing a knee on his torso, according to footage from the body cameras. He stopped breathing and his heart stopped beating. Paramedics revived him and took him to a hospital, where he died March 30.
Hours after the incident, Singletary told Warren that a person had suffered a drug overdose while in custody, Warren said last week. But a county autopsy report labeled Prude’s death a homicide caused by complications of asphyxiation in a prone position.
Protests have taken place in the streets since the release of the video.
On Tuesday, Melanie Funchess, a leader with the Greater Rochester Black Agenda Group, part of the Black Lives Matter movement, learned of the chief’s resignation when she saw the news on her phone.
“Wow, he didn’t survive,” she said. “My question is, with him retiring, will a whole story come out?”