A federal civil rights case was opened on Monday against city and police officials in Rochester, New York, alleging decades of “inhuman” and racist police violence against protesters and residents. The process comes more than a year after Daniel Prude died in police custody, which led to national condemnation of the use of police force in the city.
“Simply put, an impressive historical record spanning more than four decades demonstrates that the Rochester Police Department’s practices of using force continue to be inhumane, racist and antithetical to the functioning of a civilized society,” the suit says.
The suit, brought by a group of lawyers, activists and people who attended protests in the city, alleges that police in Rochester routinely use excessive force against minorities, especially during the protests, and that department and city officials have left such conduct largely unpunished. The nearly 100-page document details more than 50 cases of alleged police abuse against people of color, for which the vast majority of police officers were never formally punished.
As an example of the pattern of alleged conduct, the lawsuit focuses heavily on the use of force against protesters, doctors, journalists and legal observers who took to the streets in September 2020 to protest Prude’s death.
Prude, a black man, died last March after suffering an episode of mental health and his family asked the police for help. At approximately 3:15 am on March 23, Rochester police said they found Prude lying naked in the middle of the street.
While Prude obeyed orders to lie on his stomach and allow himself to be handcuffed, he then sat down and started shouting at the police, according to images from the body camera of the interaction. The police then put a spit hood on his head and pressed his face to the floor for more than three minutes. Prude ended up unanswered and later died in a hospital.
The coroner considered his death a homicide, attributing it to “complications of asphyxiation in an environment of physical restraint”, as well as “excited delirium” and PCP intoxication. A grand jury refused to charge the officers involved in Prude’s death in February.
The circumstances surrounding Prude’s death did not become public until September 2020, when Prude’s family released footage of the camera body from the incident at a press conference on September 2. The news generated immediate outrage and the first protest took place that night.
During the protest and demonstrations in the weeks that followed, the lawsuit alleges that the Rochester police used “extreme and unnecessary force”, including tear gas, pepper spray, direct impact projectiles, pepper balls and other weapons “less than lethal. ” During the first three nights of protests, authorities distributed 77 tear gas bombs and 6,100 pepper mints, the suit said.
“To be honest, what I witnessed was nothing less than abject terror, carnage and unjustified brutalization,” said Rochester photojournalist Reynaldo DeGuzman, who participated in the protests, at a news conference announcing the process, according to the CBS affiliate. WROC.
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The suit details dozens of cases of alleged police violence during the protests, including a September 3 incident in which a police officer allegedly shot a man in the eye with a pepper ball, leaving him permanently blind. Police officers are accused of shooting “intentionally” at doctors who tried to provide help – despite doctors supposedly wearing bright red jackets to identify who they were.
On September 4, Rochester looked like “a war zone”, with officers “throwing grenades, tear gas and thousands of pepper balls into the crowd,” the suit said.
That night, the police reportedly arrested a group of protesters on a bridge – a tactic commonly known as “kettling” – before attacking them with various weapons. “Videos from that night show heavily armored police phalanxes using pepper balls, 40 mm kinetic bullets, tear gas and batons to attack several groups of protesters equipped only with umbrellas, cardboard boxes and children’s plastic sleds against the arsenal of military level of the RPD, “the suit says.
“In New York City, for example, which saw thousands of protesters take to the streets, NYPD officers did not throw a pepper ball,” added the lawsuit. “In contrast, an RPD officer on the night of September 4, 2020, fired 148 balls of pepper in just twenty minutes.”
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The lawsuit also accuses city officials of administering a “false internal disciplinary system” and of refusing to hold police officers who used excessive force during protests or in their daily work.
Of the 923 civilian complaints of the use of excessive force between 2001 and 2016, the delegate sustained only 1.7%, the suit says. The most severe penalty administered in these 16 protracted cases “was 6 suspensions, most ranging from 1 to 20 days.”
“By failing to significantly train, supervise and discipline officers who use excessive force and instead suppress evidence of the officer ‘s misconduct and attack critics in the department, the city has fostered a culture of violence and impunity in its ranks, “says the process.
In a statement to CBS News, the city said Rochester’s mayor Lovely Warren “welcomes” a Department of Justice investigation into the police department and cited recent reforms the city has implemented, including the requirement to that new police officers live in the city and allowing the mayor firefighters for good cause.
The lawsuit names the city of Rochester and police officers, as well as hundreds of police officers, as defendants, and seeks compensation for monetary damages and the appointment of an independent monitor for the police department, among other requests.
“In the absence of external oversight, the system will not change: so far, the Department has not dismissed or disciplined any of the policemen who are known to have used excessive force against Daniel Prude or any of the policemen who made flagrant demonstrations of force during the protests. September 2020, including those captured on video, “says the lawsuit, adding:” Plaintiffs bring this process to end the use of violent and unconstitutional force for decades, before more lives, more black lives lost. ”
Neither the Rochester Police Department nor the union representing the officers responded immediately to CBS News’s request for comment.