An investigation into Daniel Prude’s official response to death by police suffocation last year in Rochester, New York, is blaming the city’s mayor and former police chief for keeping critical details of the case secret for months and lying to the public about what they knew.
The report, commissioned by the Rochester city council and made public on Friday, said Mayor Lovely Warren lied at a press conference in September when she said it wasn’t until August that she learned that officers had physically restricted Prude during the 23 March 2020, prison that led to his death.
Warren was informed that same day that police officers used physical restraint, the report said, and by mid-April she, then police chief La’Ron Singletary and other officers knew that Prude had died and the police were under criminal investigation.
“Ultimately, Mayor Warren, as mayor-elect of the city of Rochester, decided not to publicly disclose these facts,” said the report, drafted by New York attorney Andrew G. Celli Jr.. “But Mayor Warren alone is not responsible for suppressing the circumstances of Prude’s arrest and Mr. Prude’s death. “
Warren said in a statement that he received the report “because it allows our community to move forward”.
“Throughout the municipal government, we recognize our responsibility, we recognize that changes are necessary and we take action,” she said, citing several measures on police practices and discipline.
In his statement, Warren did not address the report’s specific assessments of his own conduct.
A special lawyer for the city administration contested allegations that Warren had lied.
The mayor spoke on the basis of the facts she knew at the time, and if what she said was not true, it was because Singletary deceived her, said Carrie Cohen.
The report said Singletary told the mayor that the police contained Prude, but the chief “consistently emphasized” the role of restrictions in Prude’s death, and his statements to officials did not “capture the disturbing content of the entire meeting”.
Singletary’s characterization “probably impacted” the way city officials viewed the matter, the report said.
A Singletary lawyer said, after a first review of the report, Singletary “was true to his statements” to Warren and other city officials.
“He never participated in any cover-ups or intentionally minimized the circumstances” surrounding Prude’s death, said Michael Tallon in a statement.
“When the mayor asked to lie, he refused and announced his retirement the next day,” he added.
Warren told the public that Singletary initially said that Prude’s death was a “drug overdose”, but Friday’s report said he never told her that. Singletary, for her part, made “false statements by default” when she did not correct Warren’s statement during a news conference in September that she was not informed that Prude’s death was considered homicide, the report said. It said that Singletary told her about the discovery on April 13.
In addition, the report said, a city attorney in August discouraged Warren from publicly disclosing Prude’s arrest or taking disciplinary action against police officers after she first watched the video of the body camera of the meeting.
The lawyer incorrectly stated that the city was banned from taking action against the police while the state attorney general’s office investigated Prude’s death, the report said.
“There are no surprises there. It confirms much of what I already knew, ”said attorney Elliot Shields, who represents Prude’s brother, Joe.
“What this shows me on a larger scale is the city’s systemic failures,” he said.
The video from the body’s camera, made public by Prude’s family in early September, shows Prude handcuffed and naked with a spit hood on his head as one policeman pushes his face against the floor while another policeman presses a knee to his back. The cops held him for about two minutes until he stopped breathing. He was removed from life support a week later.
A grand jury last month refused to indict the officers involved.
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.
The Rochester city council authorized the independent investigation into the treatment of Prude’s death days after the video was made public and voted to give investigators the power to subpoena departments in the city.
Celli, in the report, noted that the decision to inform the public of a significant event “is a political and political judgment, not a legal one” and that there are no written rules or standards in Rochester that govern the mayor or other officials in such matters.
“It is not for the special council investigator to judge whether the decisions of Rochester officials not to disclose Daniel Prude’s arrest and death were right or wrong,” Celli wrote. “The judges on this issue are the citizens of the city of Rochester and the general public.”
The report also confirms that Rochester police commanders urged city officials to postpone the public release of camera images of the death body by Prude’s suffocation, because they feared a violent reaction if it was released during protests over George’s police murder. Floyd in Minneapolis on May 25th.
In an email of June 4, Deputy Chief Mark Simmons cited the “current climate” in the city and the nation and advised Singletary to pressure city lawyers to deny a request for public records from the Prude family attorney for the filming of the encounter that led to his death.
“We certainly don’t want people to misinterpret police actions and confuse this incident with any recent murders of black men unarmed by law enforcement nationally,” wrote Simmons. “This would simply be a false narrative and could create animosity and, as a result, a potentially violent blow to this community.”
“I totally agree,” replied Singletary, according to the emails.
Rochester officials released e-mails last fall, along with police reports and other documents. Warren fired Singletary and suspended the city’s attorney, Corporation Adviser Tim Curtin, and communications director Justin Roj without pay for 30 days in response to the consequences of the case.
Prude’s death sparked several weeks of nightly protests and calls for Warren’s resignation. His family filed a federal lawsuit alleging that the police department tried to cover up the true nature of Prude’s death.