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A video published on Wednesday (2) shows the moment when the police put a kind of hood on the head of a black man, identified as Daniel Prude, near New York. Prude died on March 30 from suffocation.
The dissemination of images comes amid the debate about police violence and racism in the United States. The country has been experiencing a wave of protests since George Floyd’s death in May. The acts gained new momentum recently after police officers shot Jacob Blake seven times in the back.
In Prude’s case, the victim’s own family called the police, who sought help for the man’s alleged mental problems.
Images released Wednesday show Prude, naked, cooperating with police and following orders to remain on the ground. Her hands were behind her back, handcuffed. It was snowing in New York and she asked the agents to let her go.
Still stuck on the ground, Prude began to squirm and yell at the police to release him. At one point, when he was already handcuffed, he yells: “Give me your gun, I need it.”
This is where the security officers put a kind of hood over the man’s head to prevent the prisoner’s saliva from escaping and reaching the police. The move became standard with the new coronavirus pandemic, and New York was experiencing the beginning of the most severe phase of the outbreak at the time.
Police officers still have Daniel Prude, a black man, on the ground even in the presence of an ambulance – Photo: Rochester Police via Roth and Roth LLP via AP
Prude then began to fight and beg the police to release him. One held the man’s head to the asphalt, tightening the hood, while another knelt on the victim’s back. This action took about two minutes. The cops laughed as he struggled on the ground.
Prude, out of breath, stopped screaming. Only when the water began to flow from the detainee’s mouth did the police show concern. At the end of the video, an ambulance is seen and doctors perform resuscitation procedures to try to save the man.
A doctor concluded that Prude’s death was a homicide caused by complications from physical asphyxia. The report identifies as factors that complicate the delusional situation in which Prude was and poisoning by phencyclidine, an analgesic drug that causes hallucinations.
Moment when police put the hood on a naked black man in Rochester, near New York, USA, on March 30 – Photo: Rochester Police via Roth and Roth LLP via AP
According to the Associated Press, Daniel Prude lived in Chicago and had just arrived in Rochester, New York, to visit his family. Brother Joe Prude called emergency services to report that Daniel had left the house with apparent mental health problems.
“I called to ask my brother for help. Not to get lynched,” Joe said in an interview.
The investigation is being led by New York Attorney General Letitia James: Under local law, the deaths of unarmed people in police actions are subject to a state investigation.
A police officer argued that he put on his hood because Prude spat in his direction and that they were concerned about possible contamination from the new coronavirus.
Joe Prude, the brother who warned emergency crews, criticized the police action in an interview Wednesday. “How do you see it and not say: ‘The man is helpless, trapped and naked on the ground. He is already handcuffed’? Please!”
“How many more brothers are going to die until society understands that this must end?”
