On September 2, the need for a radical rethinking of public safety became all too obvious in Rochester, New York. That’s when the public first got to see body camera footage of police officers forcibly holding down Daniel Prude until he stopped breathing.
And the belated disclosure of more than 300 pages of documents revealed how government officials—over five months—strategized to withhold information and excuse police misconduct, even after the medical examiner ruled Prude’s death a homicide.
“This is a peaceful protest,” he said. “Why are you stopping these individuals? I just want to know.”
Prude, a forty-one-year-old Black man, joins the long list of victims who needed the help of a mental health-care professional. Instead, he was treated by police like a violent criminal.
Free the People Roc, which grew out of the Black Lives Matter movement in Rochester, has led daily protests for justice for Prude since September 2. Made up of community activists, the group is demanding that the officers involved be prosecuted and that Rochester Mayor Lovely Warren resign. The overarching goal, however, is to “defund the police.”
“Daniel Prude was failed by the system at so many levels,” Stanley Martin, one of Free The People Roc’s lead organizers, tells The Progressive, in outlining the need for rethinking public safety.
Defunding the police, Martin notes, means reconsidering how the approximately $90 million now earmarked for the Rochester Police Department is being spent. “We just need to dismantle and rebuild a new form of public safety,” says Martin.
“What does it mean to be safe?” Martin asks. “Safety is tied to resources—access to housing, access to quality education, access to food.” Martin adds, “We keep putting money into police, but we are forgetting to pour money into resources that keep people safe.”
At the heart of the uprisings in Rochester and across the nation is the horrific video showing how a naked and unarmed Daniel Prude was treated in the early morning hours of March 23, after being found on the street by police. Prude, in obvious mental distress, was handcuffed and a spit hood was put over his head. He was then held to the ground.
Scott Wagner
Daniel Prude protest at the Rochester Public Safety Building, September 6, 2020.
Officer Mark Vaughn pressed down on Prude’s head. Officer Troy Talady had his knee on Prude’s back. And Officer Francisco Santiago held his legs. Four other officers at the scene failed to intervene. Prude was asphyxiated. A week later, he was taken off life support.
Joe Prude, Daniels’s brother, says that Daniel, who was from Chicago, was sent by his sister to Rochester. She hoped he’d get a psychological evaluation because he had been acting erratically.
According to a police report released by the city, Joe called 9-1-1 on the evening of March 22 to express his concern that his brother might harm himself. Police arrived and Daniel was taken by ambulance to Strong Memorial Hospital. He was returned to Joe’s home about three hours later. Joe says he received a phone message from a nurse saying Daniel was “all right.”
But at 3 a.m. the next day, Joe heard the door slam while he was heading out to get his brother a cigarette. Daniel was out in the street.
Joe called 9-1-1. When the police arrived, Joe says he told them, “My brother is not a threat to nobody. Don’t kill my brother.”
Rochester police apparently lied about the matter from the start. Mayor Warren says she was told that Prude died of a drug overdose, and did not learn what really happened until the police body camera footage was released. In an April 10 memo to Justin Roj, a spokesperson for Warren, then-Police Chief La’Ron Singletary said he had kept Warren “in the loop” and was waiting “to give her the update on the [medical examiner’s] ruling.”
The memo referred to the PCP (“angel dust”) found in Prude’s system and “excited delirium”—both cited as contributing causes by the medical examiner. It did not mention the medical examiner’s stated cause of Prude’s homicide: “Complications of asphyxia in the setting of physical restraint.”
Mark Simmons, who now serves as Rochester’s interim police chief, was a deputy police chief at the time of Prude’s death. The released records show that he was worried about the possible consequences of disclosure.
“We certainly do not want people to misinterpret the officers’ actions and conflate this incident with any recent killings of unarmed black men by law enforcement nationally,” Simmons wrote in a June email to Chief Singletary. “That would simply be a false narrative, and would create animosity and potentially violent blow back in this community.”
Simmons was right about community outrage. The daily protests, which have drawn as many as 2,000 participants, have often started in the early evening hours on the street where Prude was so brutally mistreated. The marches have typically ended up a mile and a half away at the Public Safety Building in downtown Rochester. Since September 15, the marches have given way to daily gatherings outside City Hall.
At the Public Safety Building, metal-linked barricades separate the protesters from the police, who often number in the hundreds, with—as one protester put it—“those creepy drones” monitoring the protesters. The teach-ins and speeches at these gatherings have built a sense of community among residents.
“With the power of the people, we are shifting this paradigm,” said activist Danielle Ponder at one of nightly protests in front of the Public Safety Building, “We are taking on Goliath.”
The protests have secured some victories. Singletary resigned, as did some of his top staff. With the additional disclosure of incriminating documents, Mayor Warren fired Singletary before his resignation took effect. Funding for a $16 million police substation was rescinded by the Rochester City Council. And the city has approved $300,000 in additional funds for crisis intervention services.
But the protesters are still awaiting the results of the state attorney general’s criminal investigation into Prude’s death. The seven officers at the scene are currently suspended with pay.
Free the People Roc is rooted in a city that has a rich history of activism, dating back to the time of Frederick Douglass and Susan B. Anthony, as well as a history of strained police-community relations. In 1964, three days of rioting ensued after the police deployed attack dogs to make an arrest at a block party.
This troubling history did not stop state police from showing up on September 5 in downtown Rochester with two police dogs as part of its backup arsenal. Warren, the first woman and second African American to serve as mayor of Rochester, asked that the dogs be taken away.
But a police dog was subsequently spotted and Warren has not put an end to the militarization of law enforcement. Peaceful protesters have been confronted with pepper balls, tear gas, and riot police backed up by two armored vehicles.
Don Thompson, one of the lawyers representing the Prude family in a federal civil rights lawsuit, says he has statements from as many as fifty protesters who suffered injuries.
A history of unpunished police abuse is detailed in the lawsuit as evidence of “an entrenched culture” that “condones and encourages officers to use excessive force.”
On September 12, Free the People Roc’s nightly march was blocked by riot police, eventually with two military-style armored vehicles behind them.
“Which side are you on, my people, which are you on?” chanted the protesters during the stand-off.
Joe Prude stepped forward to address the small army of riot police. “This is a peaceful protest,” he said. “Why are you stopping these individuals? I just want to know.”
Police did not respond to Prude’s question, and the night ended with police hitting people with batons.
“The police are totally out of control,” says Robin Wilt, a local town board member who has been participating in the protests with her husband Nicholas. “They attacked us with billy clubs. I was pushed over while my hands were in the air.”
Nicholas Wilt’s livestream of the encounter ends with a blur of batons. He was tackled by police and charged with disorderly conduct. And when he was brought to the Public Safety Building, FBI agents tried to question him.
As Robin tells it, the agents didn’t get beyond asking Nicholas if he was “local.” He gave them a “yes,” and then said: “And don’t be offended if this is the last thing I say to you.”
Mayor Warren’s recommendations for police reform, which include seeking a Justice Department review of the police department, were laid out in a report released with the documents. But they fall far short of protesters’ demands.
Free the People Roc responded by blocking entrances to City Hall.
“We are here at City Hall to remind the mayor that the report was not enough,” said organizer Iman Abid-Thompson, as protesters clustered at the entrances to the building on September 15. “Justice will not be served until those officers are prosecuted.”
“Indict. Convict. Send those killer cops to jail. The whole damn system is guilty as hell,” chanted the protesters as music played. “Wanted” signs, including ones calling on Warren to resign, were among those taped to the outside walls and doors.
About seventy-five protesters pitched tents and brought sleeping bags, vowing to stay outside City Hall until their demands were met. The side of a nearby building provided a makeshift movie screen for a showing of Black Panther.
The next morning, police in riot gear made at least sixteen arrests in breaking up the peaceful encampment. But protesters still returned that evening, with some sleeping on the sidewalk.
Activists maintain a daily presence, to keep pressure on Mayor Warren and to generate support.
“I just started back to school and literally none of my teachers mentioned Daniel Prude,” said a fourteen-year-old activist at a September 17 teach-in outside City Hall. S. “They acted like this was a normal summer.”
The federal lawsuit recently filed in U.S. District Court in Rochester on behalf of the Prude family not only seeks damages for violating Daniel Prude’s civil rights, but also requests a federal monitor to oversee the needed reforms of the Rochester Police Department.
A history of unpunished police abuse is detailed in the lawsuit as evidence of “an entrenched culture” that “condones and encourages officers to use excessive force.”
In addition to the city of Rochester, fourteen individual defendants are named in the suit. They include Singletary, the seven officers who responded to the 9-1-1 call, officials responsible for officer training, and those responsible for conducting an internal investigation that did not find any violations of department policies.
“You cannot find under any civilized standard that causing death in this situation is an appropriate practice” says attorney Thompson. “And if it, in fact, is consistent with your training and practice, you have a real problem.”