Hundreds of protesters took to the streets of Rochester, NY late on Tuesday to protest the news that a grand jury decided not to indict seven police officers involved in Daniel Prude’s arrest in March 2020, whose death made headlines after a video showed that he was handcuffed naked and sitting on the street with his head covered by a hood.
Protesters gathered around 7:30 pm in the area where Prude, a 41-year-old black man, was confronted and handcuffed by police shortly before a year earlier, Democrat & Chronicle reported. As the night progressed, the protesters reportedly sang and challenged police orders to avoid the area of Child and Maple streets, where a police station is located.
Photos posted on social media show that the protesters – some wearing helmets and umbrellas – climbed the barriers along Child Street and were greeted by police officers.
As the demonstration continued, the police announced in a second tweet of the night that the RPD “supports the rights of our citizens to protest peacefully as the US Constitution allows”.
THE NEW YORK GRAND JURY VOTES NOT TO INDICATE POLICIES FOR THE DEATH OF DANIEL PRUDE
The tweet added: “We ask that anyone wishing to protest peacefully refrain from participating or engaging with anyone who acts or commits acts of violence.”
Protesters reportedly moved on, walking against traffic along Interstate 490, and made their way to the Rochester Public Safety Building, where protesters often gathered – sometimes wearing little clothing to mimic the circumstances of Prude’s prison – during the summer months until autumn.
Protesters started to jump over the metal barricades placed in front of the building, helping each other to climb as they walked to the front doors.
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The unrest ended around 11:45 pm, says the report. The protesters were largely non-violent and the police made no arrests overnight, according to the Democrat & Chronicle.
The previous Tuesday, New York Attorney General Letitia James announced the news that a grand jury had refused to indict the six policemen and a sergeant for handling the case last March.
Prude died a few days after his meeting with the police, and the police reportedly described his death as a drug overdose. But the video from the police body’s camera that surfaced in September showed that Prude appeared to be suffering from a mental episode, possibly drug-induced.
The footage also showed Prude naked and sitting on the street wearing a mesh cover, known as a spit hood, over his head. Throughout the interaction, one officer can be seen pressing the knee to Prude’s back while another pushes his face to the pavement. They supposedly held him for about two minutes, but then realized that he had no pulse and started CPR.
He died on March 30. A coroner concluded that Daniel Prude’s death was a homicide caused by “choking complications in a physical containment environment”. The report lists excited delirium and acute phencyclidine poisoning, or PCP, as contributing factors.
James, whose office took over the investigation, said her office “presented the strongest case possible” to the grand jury, but was unable to persuade him that the officers committed a crime.
“I know that the Prude family, the Rochester community and communities across the country will be legitimately disappointed with this outcome,” said James, who traveled to Rochester to announce the grand jury’s decision at a church near where Prude was deadly injured.
She said she was obliged to respect the grand jury decision, but she also condemned a system that she said had “thwarted efforts to hold police officers accountable for the unjustified death of African Americans”.
“What links these cases is a tragic loss of life in circumstances where death could have been prevented,” said James, who, like the mayor of Rochester and the city’s current and former police chiefs, is black.
New York State Attorney General Letitia James speaks to the media at the Aenon Missionary Baptist Church in Rochester, NY, Tuesday, February 23, 2021. (AP Photo / Adrian Kraus)
“We recognize racial influences, from slave codes to Jim Crow, to lynching, to war on crime, to the excessive imprisonment of people of color: Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, Breonna Taylor, George Floyd. And now Daniel Prude,” she said.
Lawyers for the seven officers suspended for Prude’s death said the officers were strictly following the training that night, employing a restrictive technique known as “segmentation”. They claimed that Prude’s use of PCP, which caused irrational behavior, was “the root cause” of his death.
Officers Troy Taladay, Paul Ricotta, Francisco Santiago, Andrew Specksgoor, Josiah Harris and Mark Vaughn, along with the sergeant. Michael Magri was suspended after Prude’s death went public. The officers will remain on leave until the result of an internal investigation, Rochester police chief Cynthia Herriott-Sullivan told the Associated Press.
ARCHIVE – On this September 3, 2020, archival photo, Joe Prude, brother of Daniel Prude, right, and his son Armin, are with a photo of Daniel Prude in Rochester, NY (AP Photo / Ted Shaffre, Archive)
(AP)
“The system failed again with Daniel Prude,” said Prude family lawyer Elliot Shields, about the grand jury decision. “He failed on March 22, when he was discharged from the hospital. He failed on the night of March 23, when the police used deadly force against him. And he failed again today.”
Shields said Prude’s brother Joe Prude was “heartbroken”.
Prude was from Chicago and traveled to Rochester on March 22 to visit his brother. According to an internal affairs investigator’s report released earlier, Prude was expelled from the train before he arrived in Rochester for “his undisciplined behavior”.
Hours later, he was taken to the hospital before going to his brother’s house. Around 3 am on March 23, he ran out of his brother’s back door.
Prude was handcuffed by the police at about 3:20 am, after his brother called the police to take him back to the hospital, where he had been hours before.
“Around 3 am, Daniel was acting very weird again – he ran out my back door wearing only a tank top and some long shorts,” wrote Joe Prude in a supporting statement later released in a treasure trove of documents. “I called the police again so they could find him and take him back to the hospital.”
DANIEL PRUDE VIDEO INITIALLY HELD BY THE ROCHESTER POLICE, SHOW DOCUMENTS
The police located Daniel Prude shortly after he allegedly went to a telephone store where the police believe he “threw a concrete block into the store window before being seen by a tow truck driver”. Police said the tow truck driver described Prude as naked, covered in blood, and said he told the driver he had the new coronavirus.
What happened next – the video that sent shock waves to upstate New York and the country – also generated turmoil between former Rochester police chief La’Ron Singletary and Mayor Lovely Warren.
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Singletary, who was fired in connection with the department’s response to Daniel Prude’s death, said in December that Warren pressured him to lie about how she handled the investigation – and claimed he was dismissed when he refused to do so.
That same month, the city’s public integrity office published a report concluding that there were no ethical flaws in the way Warren or the senior team reacted to Prude’s death.
Rochester was also attacked recently after a video circulated showing local police officers spraying pepper on a 9-year-old girl.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.