Rochester police suspend seven officers, mayor called them ‘racists’

The mayor of Rochester, Lovely Warren, calls the deadly arrest of Daniel Prude ‘a racist act’.

“Daniel Prude has been abandoned by our police, mental health care, our society and by myself,” said Warren. “I am extremely angry and sad because of all the failures that led to his death.”

Police commissioner La ‘ Ron Singletary said on Wednesday that there is an internal investigation going on about the officers involved. Prude’s relatives want the officers in question prosecuted for murder.

Prudence was found in a confused state on the street and apprehended. While officers handcuffed him, put on a so-called hood and pushed him to the ground, he lost consciousness and stopped breathing.

Seven days after that arrest, on March 30, Prude was taken off life support at the hospital and he died, his family said. According to the coroner, his death was a homicide due to “complications of asphyxiation by physical compulsion.”

The 41-year-old Prudence died two months before George Floyd, The Man from Minneapolis whose death triggered a wave of national and international demonstrations against police violence.

Prude’s relatives and activists are accusing the police of a cover-up, because the footage of his arrest was only released two months after the date and the investigation seems to have been slow. Police Commissioner Singletary denied that on Wednesday.

About a hundred protesters gathered at a police station in Rochester on Wednesday. It came to skirmishes.