The Mayor of Rochester, New York, announced that the city’s Police Department Command Staff had announced its retirement following the death of Daniel Prude.
Prude was suffering from acute mental health problems when police were called. Officers found him running naked in the street in light snowfall and restrained him with a “spit hood,” is designed to protect police from saliva.
On the body camera, one officer is seen pressing down on Prude’s head with both hands, saying, “stop spitting.” He stops moving or making any sounds. An officer can be heard saying his feet felt cold.
The Monroe County medical examiner ruled Prude’s death a homicide caused by “complications of asphyxia in the setting of physical restraint.”
Mayor Lovely Warren said the resignations included the police chief and two deputy chiefs, adding that the police chief was not asked for his resignation but that it was given voluntarily.
“The members of the Rochester Police Department and the Greater Rochester Community know my reputation and know what I stand for,” Police Chief La’Ron Singletary wrote in his resignation letter. “The mischaracterization and the politicization of the actions that I took after being informed of Mr. Prude’s death is not based on facts, and is not what I stand for.”