Prude denounces mayor and former police chief for keeping Prude’s death a secret

An investigation into the official response to the police suffocation death of Daniel Prude last year in Rochester, New York, accuses the city’s mayor and former police chief of keeping critical details of the case under wraps for months and lying to the public about what they knew.

The report, commissioned by Rochester City Council and released on Friday, said Mayor Lovely Warren lied at a press conference in September when she said it was not until August that she learned that officers physically restrained Prude during the March 23, 2020 arrest that led to her death.

Warren learned the same day that officers had used physical restraint, the report said, and by mid-April she, then Chief of Police La’Ron Singletary and other officials knew that Prude had died and that the officers were under criminal investigation. .

“In the final analysis, the decision not to publicly disclose these facts rested with Mayor Warren, as mayor-elect of the City of Rochester,” said the report, written by New York-based attorney Andrew G. Celli. Jr. “But Mayor Warren alone is not responsible for removing the circumstances of Prude’s arrest and Mr. Prude’s death.

Warren said in a statement that she welcomed the report “because it allows our community to move forward.”

“Across municipal government, we have recognized our responsibility, recognized that changes are needed and taken action,” she said, citing various measures on police practices and discipline.

In his statement, Warren did not address the report’s specific assessments of his own conduct.

A special attorney for the city administration disputed the allegations that Warren had lied.

The mayor spoke based on facts known to her at the time and if what she said was not true it was because Singletary had misled her, Carrie Cohen said.

The report states that Singletary told the mayor that officers had restrained Prude, but that the chief had “systematically de-emphasized” the role of restraints in Prude’s death, and his statements to officials did not “capture the disturbing tenor of the whole meeting ”.

Singletary’s characterization “likely had an impact” on how city officials viewed the issue, according to the report.

A lawyer for Singletary said, during an initial review of the report, Singletary “was honest in her statements” to Warren and other city officials.

“He never participated in any cover-up or intentionally downplayed the circumstances” around Prude’s death, Michael Tallon said in a statement.

“When asked to lie by the mayor, he refused and announced his retirement the next day,” he added.

Warren told the public that Singletary first told him that Prude’s death was a “drug overdose,” but Friday’s report said he never told her that. Singletary, meanwhile, made “misrepresentation by omission” when he failed to correct Warren’s claim at a September press conference that she had not been informed that the death of Prude had been found to be homicidal, according to the report. He said Singletary told him about the discovery on April 13.

Additionally, according to the report, a city lawyer in August discouraged Warren from publicly disclosing Prude’s arrest or initiating disciplinary action against police after seeing the body camera video for the first time.

The attorney falsely said the city had no right to take action against officers while the state attorney general’s office investigated Prude’s death, the report said.

“There are no surprises there. This confirms most of what I already knew, ”said attorney Elliot Shields, who represents Prude’s brother Joe.

“What this shows me on a larger scale are the city’s systemic failures,” he said.

Body camera video, made public by Prude’s family in early September, shows Prude handcuffed and naked with a hood over her head as an officer pushes her face against the ground, while another officer presses her face down. one knee against his back. Officers held him down for about two minutes until he stopped breathing. It was removed from the respiratory system a week later.

A grand jury last month declined to indict the officers involved.

Lawyers for the seven police officers suspended for Prude’s death said officers strictly followed their training that night, using a restraint technique known as “segmentation.” They claimed that Prude’s use of PCP, which caused irrational behavior, was “the root cause” of his death.

Rochester City Council authorized an independent investigation into the handling of Prude’s death within days of the video’s release and voted to give investigators the power to subpoena city departments.

Celli, in the report, noted that the decision to inform the public of an important event “is a political judgment, and a political judgment, not a legal one,” and that there are no rules or regulations. standards written in Rochester governing the mayor or other officials on these matters.

“It is not for the Special Council investigator to judge whether the decisions of Rochester officials not to disclose the arrest and death of Daniel Prude were good or bad,” Celli wrote. “The judges on this matter are the citizens of the City of Rochester and the general public.”

The report also confirms that Rochester Police Commanders urged city officials not to publicly disclose body camera footage of Prude’s suffocation death as they feared a violent return of force if he did. was demonstrating during protests against the murder of George Floyd by police on May 25 in Minneapolis.

In a June 4 email, Deputy Chief Mark Simmons cited the ‘current climate’ in the city and country and advised Singletary to pressure city lawyers to deny the record request. public statements from a lawyer for the Prude family regarding footage from the meeting that led to his death. .

“We certainly don’t want people to misinterpret the actions of the officers and associate this incident with any recent murder of unarmed black men by law enforcement at the national level,” Simmons wrote. “It would simply be a false narrative and could create animosity and potentially a return of violence in this community.”

“Strongly agree,” Singletary replied, according to the emails.

Rochester officials released the emails last fall, along with police reports and other documents. Warren fired Singletary and suspended town attorney, company attorney Tim Curtin, and communications director Justin Roj without pay for 30 days in response to the fallout from the case.

Prude’s death sparked weeks of nightly protests and calls for Warren’s resignation. Her family filed a federal complaint alleging that the police department sought to cover up the true nature of Prude’s death.