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Mayor suspends officers involved in man’s suffocation death in Rochester, NY

In this image taken from police body camera video provided by Roth and Roth LLP, a Rochester police officer puts a hood over the head of Daniel Prude, on March 23, 2020, in Rochester, N.Y. Video of Prude, a Black man who had run naked through the streets of the western New York city, died of asphyxiation after a group of police officers put a hood over his head, then pressed his face into the pavement for two minutes, according to video and records released Wednesday, Sept. 2, 2020, by his family. Prude died March 30 after he was taken off life support, seven days after the encounter with police in Rochester. (Rochester Police via Roth and Roth LLP via AP)

ROCHESTER, N.Y. (AP) — Seven police officers involved in the
suffocation death of Daniel Prude in Rochester, New York, were suspended
Thursday by the city’s mayor, who said she was misled for months about
the circumstances of the fatal encounter.

Prude, 41, who was
Black, died when he was taken off life support March 30. That was seven
days after officers who encountered him running naked through the street
put a hood over his head to stop him from spitting, then held him down
for about two minutes until he stopped breathing.

Rochester Mayor
Lovely Warren announced the suspensions at a news conference amid
outrage that city officials had previously kept quiet about Prude’s
death.

While denying a cover-up, Warren acknowledged that Prude
“was failed by the police department, our mental health care system, our
society, and he was failed by me.”

Hours after the announcement, a
crowd of protesters unswayed by the suspensions demonstrated late into
the night outside Rochester’s police headquarters. Officers doused some
protesters with a chemical spray and repeatedly fired an irritant into
the crowd to drive activists away from metal barricades ringing the
building. Protesters protected themselves with umbrellas, dashed for
cover, then returned to be fired on again.

Journalists were among
those hit by pellets during the confrontation, which came on the second
day of peaceful demonstrations over Prude’s death.

The mayor said
she only became aware that Prude’s death involved the use of force on
Aug. 4. Initially, she said, Police Chief La’Ron Singletary portrayed it
as a drug overdose, which is “entirely different” than what Warren said
she witnessed in body camera video. The mayor said she told the chief
she was “deeply, personally and professionally disappointed” in his
failure to accurately inform her what happened to Prude.

Warren
said the seven officers would still be paid because of contract rules
and that she was taking the action against the advice of attorneys.

“I understand that the union may sue the city for this. They shall feel free to do so,” she said.

Approached at a community event, Singletary declined to comment but said he would speak later.

Messages left with the union representing Rochester police officers were not returned.

Prude’s
death happened just as the coronavirus was raging out of control in New
York and received no public attention at the time.

His family
held a news conference Wednesday and released police body camera video
obtained through a public records request that captured his fatal
interaction with the officers.

The videos and other records
detailed how police had gone looking for Prude after he bolted from his
brother’s home early on March 23, hours after receiving a mental health
evaluation at a hospital.

When officers found Prude he was
completely naked, on the street in a light snow. He lay on the ground as
they handcuffed him, then grew agitated, shouting and writhing and
demanding that the officers give him a gun.

Officers put a hood
over his head because he had been spitting and then pressed his face
into the pavement for two minutes, police video shows.

The hoods
are intended to protect officers from a detainee’s saliva and have been
scrutinized as a factor in the deaths of several prisoners in recent
years.

The videos show Prude, his voice muffled by the hood,
begging the white officer pushing his head down to let him go. As the
officer, Mark Vaughn, says, “Calm down” and “Stop spitting,” Prude’s
shouts became anguished whimpers and grunts.

“OK, stop. I need it. I need it,” Prude says.

The
officer lets Prude go after about two minutes when he stops moving and
falls silent. Officers then notice water coming out of Prude’s mouth and
call over waiting medics, who start CPR.

A medical examiner
concluded that Prude’s death was a homicide caused by “complications of
asphyxia in the setting of physical restraint.” The report lists excited
delirium and acute intoxication by phencyclidine, or PCP, as
contributing factors.

“My father should have been met with a
mental health specialist. He should not have been killed in the street,”
his 18-year-old daughter, Tashyra Prude, said in an interview with The
Associated Press. “He did not deserve that. He was treated like an
animal. And I want this to be a step toward justice for not only my
father, but justice for people like Breonna Taylor, who were killed by
the police.”

New York Attorney General Letitia James’ office took over the investigation of the death in April. It is still not complete.

“The
Prude family and the greater Rochester community deserve answers, and
we will continue to work around the clock to provide them,” James said
in a statement Thursday.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo said in a statement that he watched video of Prude’s fatal encounter with police Wednesday night.

“What
I saw was deeply disturbing and I demand answers,” he said, adding that
he was confident James’ investigation would be thorough. “For the sake
of Mr. Prude’s family and the greater Rochester community I am calling
for this case to be concluded as expeditiously as possible.”

Demonstrators
came out on Thursday evening for a second straight night, about 200 of
them gathering near the street corner where Prude was restrained by
police. Some activists felt suspending the officers was not enough.

“This is a cover up and honestly our mayor, our police chief, they should be bought up on criminal charges,” said Justin Morris.

Earlier
Thursday, Prude’s brother, Joe Prude, said all his younger brother
wanted that morning was “somebody to grab him up and help him.”

“No matter how you look at the situation, the man was absolutely in his birthday suit, handcuffed behind his back, on the ground already, in freezing weather,” Joe Prude said. “How could you sit here and label that man a threat to you when he’s already cuffed up? How could you throw a bag over his head?”

Hill reported from Albany. Associated Press writers Michael R. Sisak, Ted Shaffrey and Jennifer Peltz in New York and Don Babwin in Chicago contributed to this report.

The Associated Press quoted a woman who identified herself as an aunt of Prude. The AP has removed quotes and information attributed to her from stories because it can no longer verify her identity.