No raps vs. upstate cops in death of Black man

Police officers 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 Tuesday

Upstate Rochester was beset by weeks of protests last summer in the wake of disturbing police body camera footage showing cops holding the 41-year-old Black man to the ground as they put a spit hood over his head while he was having a mental health episode.

Officers held Prude down for about two minutes until he stopped breathing. He was taken off life support a week later.

“I am disappointed, extremely disappointed,” state Attorney General Letitia James said of the verdict during a news conference.

“History has unfortunately repeated itself again in the case of Daniel Prude,” James added. “The system was built to protect and shield officers from wrongdoing and accountability . ... That is a system that at its core is broken.

The county medical examiner listed the manner of death as a 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.

“This is still an ongoing investigation,” said Rochester Police Chief Cynthia Herriott-Sullivan in a statement released after the grand jury verdict. “The Rochester Police Department’s (RPD ) Professional Standards Section (PSS) will continue with the internal investigation. The officers will remain on leave pending the outcome of this internal investigation.”

Officers Troy Taladay, Paul Ricotta, Francisco Santiago, Andrew Specksgoor, Josiah Harris and Mark Vaughn, along with Sgt. Michael Magri, were suspended after Prude’s death became public.

A Manhattan federal judge said Tuesday it is “exceedingly suspicious” that there are minimal emails discussing the decision to force the NYPD’s first female three-star chief into retirement.

Joanne Jaffe, who oversaw the Housing bureau, sued in July 2019, claiming she was the victim of discrimination because she was older, white and a woman. Her retirement, along with three other high-ranking cops, was revealed in a 2018 press release announcing promotions during an effort to diversify the predominantly white upper ranks of the department, she says.

City attorney Donna Canfield said a search of emails among NYPD leadership, City Hall and First Lady Chirlane McCray’s office found “not a lot” of documents regarding the decision.

Judge Loretta Preska buying it.

“You are straining credulity. It is not possible that such a coordinated change happened without emails. So don’t insult my intelligence and don’t tell there were no emails,” Preska said.

“Do you think I am stupid?” she asked. “Either you haven’t looked in the right place or something is wrong. It is not possible that all those four people left the service on the same day without some kind of preparation. It cannot be ... The fact there are so few communications is exceedingly suspicious.”

Canfield emphasized that such decisions occur “behind closed doors” at the NYPD.

“I don’t believe there is a lot of email correspondence on this topic,” she said.

Former Commissioner James O’Neill and First Deputy Commissioner Benjamin Tucker are expected to be deposed in connection with the case.

Jaffe’s suit is one of three recent discrimination suits filed by pioneering women in the NYPD. Diana Pizzuti, the NYPD’s first female chief of personnel, settled her discrimination suit in November for $330,000.

Lori Pollock, the NYPD’s first female chief of crime control strategies, claimed in a third suit in August that Commissioner Dermot Shea forced her into retirement for “blatant, gender-based” reasons. wasn’t