The events that led to Daniel Prude's homicide-ruled death
By Yaron Steinbuch
New York Post
September 3, 2020
Daniel Prude was suffering from acute mental health problems as he
walked naked and bleeding down a Rochester street before three cops
placed a so-called spit hood over his head after he claimed he was
infected with the coronavirus, according to a report.
The 41-year-old Chicago resident had arrived in the city to stay with
his brother Joe’s family a day before the fateful March 23 encounter, the Democrat and Chronicle reported.
At first, Prude was thrown off an Amtrak train in Buffalo and was
later driven to Rochester, where he began to act out, so his brother
called police for assistance, according to the outlet.
He was taken to Strong Memorial Hospital to undergo a mental health
evaluation and later released, according to a police investigation cited
by the newspaper.
But after a few hours, Prude — wearing only long underwear, a tank
top and socks — ran out of the family’s home at 3 a.m., prompting Joe to
call 911 again.
Prude removed all his clothing as he walked along West Main Street,
where police believe he broke windows of a business and was seen by
passers-by who reported his actions to police, according to the account.
One person stopped to shoot a Facebook Live video of Prude after
seeing him get on his knees and beg a motorist to call 911. When the
driver said they were on the phone with 911, Prude ran off.
Moments later, he was intercepted by police on Jefferson Avenue,
where they ordered him to lie on the ground and place his hands behind
his back.
“Sure thing, sure thing,” Prude said as he rolled onto his stomach at
3:16 a.m., according to the Democrat and Chronicle, which said it
reviewed all 88 minutes of raw view provided by the family’s lawyer.
Though restrained, Prude remained agitated as he shouted at times and
spat onto the street, though he never initiated any contact with the
officers, who placed a hood over his head to protect them from his
bodily fluids when he claimed to be infected with the coronavirus, the
news outlet reported.
At one point, Prude shouted, “Gimme that gun! Gimme that gun, I mean it!”
When the officers tried to keep him from standing up, he yelled, “You’re trying to kill me!”
An officer identified in the video as Mark Vaughn then pushed the
side of Prude’s head into the pavement — reminiscent of the way a
Minneapolis cop pushed his knee into George Floyd’s neck in the fatal
May 25 incident.
Another cop — identified as Troy Talladay — used his knee to hold
down Prude’s torso while a third held down his legs, according to the
account.
In his report, Vaughn wrote that he used a “hypoglossal nerve
technique” on Prude in which he jammed his fingers into a nerve under
the jaw in a painful compliance procedure.
Vaughn pushed down Prude’s head for 2 minutes 15 seconds before
letting up and asking, “You good now?” Prude did not respond, but the
officer resumed pushing with one hand for 45 additional seconds, the
report states.
Three minutes after Prude’s head was pressed into the asphalt, an EMT
identified as Brett Barnes asked the officers to roll him onto his
back. He later told investigators that is when he realized Prude was not
breathing and began to administer CPR.
Prude’s cuffed hands remained secured behind his back, though,
because the cops could not immediately find a key to remove the
restraints while CPR was going on.
Prude was placed in an ambulance 11 minutes after police arrived, the video showed.
Though his heartbeat was restored during the short trip to the
hospital, his brain had been deprived of oxygen for too long and he was
later declared brain-dead, according to the police narrative cited by
the Democrat and Chronicle.
He died March 30 after being taken off life support — and his liver
and one kidney were donated for use in transplants, according to the
autopsy report.
One of the officers later went to Joe’s home to inform him that his brother had been located.
“We got him. Your brother’s at Strong (Memorial Hospital),” the
officer was heard saying in the unedited police footage, the Democrat
and Chronicle reported.
“So he cooperated?” Joe asked.
“Yeah, um …,” the officer answered before excusing himself to make a
phone call — without telling the family that Daniel’s heart had stopped
beating during the confrontation.
The medical examiner ruled his death a homicide,
caused by “complications of asphyxia in the setting of physical
restraint, excited delirium [and] acute phencyclidine [PCP]
intoxication.”
The autopsy report also listed two lung diseases, heart inflammation
and a brain injury as complications in his death, the Democrat and
Chronicle reported.
In the footage, a paramedic identified in the police report as Julie Purick spoke to an officer as her colleague performed CPR.
“PCP can cause what we call excited delirium,” she said.
“Yeah, I know what excited delirium is,” the cop responded.
“I guarantee you that’s how he coded,” Purick added, using a term for
the sudden cessation of lung and heart function. “It’s not you guys’
fault. You’ve got to keep yourselves safe.”
During a news conference Wednesday, Joe accused police of handling his brother “like a damned animal.”
“I placed a phone call to get my brother help, not to have my brother
lynched,” he said, according to the paper. “How many more brothers have
to die before society understands this needs to stop?”
Mayor Lovely Warren called the video “disturbing.”
“I can sympathize and empathize with the family,” she said in a
separate press conference, where she denied a lack of transparency in
not disclosing the death until months later.
“I want everyone to understand that at no point in time did we feel
that this was something that we wanted not to disclose,” Warren said.
“We are precluded from getting involved in it until that agency [the
state AG’s office] has completed their investigation.”
Police Chief La’Ron Singletary echoed her comments, saying, “This is
not a cover-up” — adding that he launched a criminal investigation and
an internal probe the day the incident occurred.
He said the investigations were stopped when New York Attorney
General Letitia James stepped in and would be completed after the state
investigators have wrapped up their work.
The report on the internal police probe, provided by the family’s
attorney, contained a conclusion saying, “The officers’ actions and
conduct displayed when dealing with Prude appear to be appropriate and
consistent with their training.”
The report was dated April 27, 11 days after the AG’s office began its inquiry.
On Wednesday, Singletary denied that his department’s investigation was completed.
He also confirmed the officers involved in the case remain on active
duty and have not been disciplined — adding that he was precluded from
suspending any of them until the AG probe is over.
The family has filed a notice of intent to sue the city, the newspaper reported.
Ashley Gantt, an organizer with Free The People Roc, a local Black
Lives Matter group, called for “accountability for the wrongful death
and murder of Daniel Prude,” saying “he was treated inhumanely and
without dignity,” according to the outlet.
EDITOR'S NOTE; Upon orders of the mayor, all seven officers involved in the arrest have now been suspended.
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