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Daniel Prud died a week after being handled by police
An unarmed black man was killed in New York State while police gave him warmth and held his face on the road for two minutes, body camera footage shows.
Daniel Proud, 41, was suffering from mental health issues when police detained him in March.
He died at the hospital a week later. His story has only been revealed by his family, who held a news conference.
Mr. Prude died two months before the global outcry over the assassination of Mr. George Floyd erupted.
Mr Floyd died in May after being strangled by a white police officer for eight minutes.
Tensions have risen again in recent weeks after a black man shot Jacob Black seven times in the back during an arrest in Kenosha, Wisconsin, on August 23, sparking renewed violence in the city, sparking large-scale violent protests.
Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden has pleaded guilty to charges against police involved in Mr Blake’s shooting and to Taylor, an African-American woman who was killed in Louisville, Kentucky, during a drug raid in March.
“I think we should let the judicial system do its job,” he said at a news conference in Delaware. “I think at least, they need to be charged, officials.”
U.S. Attorney General William Barre on Wednesday dismissed allegations that police racially discriminated against black and white Americans.
In an interview with CNN, he said it was very rare for an unarmed black man to be shot by white officers.
“I think the statement in the epidemic of police shooting unarmed black men is just a false story.”
How did Daniel Prude die?
Mr. Brother’s brother, J.J., called police in Rochester, New York, on March 23, as his sibling was suffering from severe mental health problems.
“I made a phone call to my brother to get help, not to fix my brother,” he told a news conference on Wednesday.
Daniel Prude, a warehouse worker in Chicago and father of five, visited the brother at the time of his death.
Mr Prude shows footage from a police camera camera obtained by the family at the request of a public record, which he walked naked on the roads in the light snow before police arrived, leaving him unarmed as officers restrained him on the ground.
The video shows that when officers arrived at the scene Mr. Prude immediately complied and ordered him to lie down on the ground and put his hand behind his back. He can be heard saying: “A certain thing, a certain thing.”
He is surrounded, often swearing and spitting at the officers around him, but according to the footage he appears to offer no physical resistance.
Mr Prude told officers he was infected with the coronavirus, and they put a “spit hood” over his head. “Spit hoods” are mesh fabric hoods placed over the heads of suspects to protect officers from the saliva of the detainee.
Critics who oppose their use say they are painful and insulting, can cause panic in a detainee and make it difficult to know if a prisoner is having trouble breathing.
An officer presses both hands down on Mr. Prude’s head and says: “Stop spitting.”
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After he stops knitting and calms down, one officer notes: “It feels so cold.”
Physicians try to keep him alive before he is taken to the ambulance. A week later on March 30 he was stripped of life support.
The family’s lawyer said the reason behind the case not being made public before was that it had taken “months” for police to release the footage.
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In a statement, the New York State Attorney General called the death a “tragedy” and said an investigation was under way. The officers involved have not been suspended.
According to a post-mortem examination report seen by the Rochester-based Democrat and Chronicle newspaper, Mr Prude’s death was a cow-killing due to shortness of breath in a state of physical restraint.
PCP, a potent hallucinogenic drug, is also listed in the report as a complication.
According to the newspaper, Rochester police used pepper spray and pepper balls against protesters outside the public safety building on Wednesday.
