“Daniel Prude was going through a mental health crisis and what he needed was compassion, care and help from trained professionals. Tragically, he received none of these things,” said James in a statement. “We concluded that there was sufficient evidence surrounding Mr. Prude’s death to justify presenting the case to a grand jury and we presented the case as broadly as possible.
“Although I know that the Prude family, the Rochester community and communities across the country will be devastated and disappointed with reason, we have to respect that decision,” added James.
Lawyers Ben Crump and Antonio Romanucci, who represent Prude’s family, said they are “deeply disappointed that the police will not face criminal charges for killing Daniel Prude during what was clearly a mental health crisis while he was naked on the cold streets. with a spit the hood they put over your head. “
“This tragedy could have been prevented if the police had been properly trained, but also used basic human decency and common sense to treat Mr. Prude with compassion and get the medical attention he deserved,” said the lawyers in a statement. . “We will continue to defend justice in civilian courts, while seeking to reform the federal police so that these continuing tragedies against black citizens end once and for all.”
James said the laws on lethal force “created a system that failed utterly and abjectly for Mr. Prude and so many others before him”.
“Serious reform is needed, not just in the Rochester Police Department, but in our criminal justice system as a whole,” said James, who started an investigation of the case in April.
Police and camera footage of the body, released to the public months after the incident, showed police officers handcuffing a naked Prude and covering his head with a “spit sock” after he claimed he had the coronavirus and was spitting.
The officers grabbed him and pushed him to the floor in a lying position, according to the video, which also showed policemen kneeling over Prude.
The paramedics arrived later and started to perform chest compressions, the video showed. Prude was placed on a stretcher and an ambulance.
When Prude arrived at the hospital, he was brain dead, according to his brother. He died a week later.
Seven police officers involved in the prison were suspended. The police union insisted that the officers followed their training and protocols.
Prude, 41, was having a mental health episode on March 23, when his brother Joe called the Rochester Police Department asking for help, his family told reporters.
Prude’s death was considered homicide by the Monroe County coroner, according to a copy of the autopsy report obtained by lawyers for his family. The report cited complications from suffocation in the physical containment environment as a finding. The report also cited excited delusion and acute PCP intoxication as causes of death.
The death also raised questions about how the police respond to cases involving people in mental health crisis. The police are often the first to respond to reports of a person acting irregularly and occasionally use police tactics or force in their response.
The Rochester City Council in September authorized the subpoena to a New York City law firm that led the independent investigation into the city’s handling of the case – particularly if there was internal cover-up and how information about Prude’s death was maintained of the public in the city in western New York.
In a police incident report released, among many editions, some prosaic, Prude’s name is written in the space called “Victim”. Prude’s name is circled in red, next to a large handwritten note: “Make him a suspect.”
Rochester’s Mayor Lovely Warren pushed the police chief before his retirement and suspended two other city officials.
In September, Prude’s sister filed a lawsuit in federal court against the former police chief, 13 police officers and the city, partly alleging the department’s cover-up of death.
Former police chief La’Ron Singletary said earlier this month that he saw nothing “shocking” or any criminal conduct by police when he first saw the video of the incident. He testified in a virtual statement to an independent investigator.