[ad_1]
The New York Attorney General has announced that she will form a grand jury to investigate the death of a black man who had been hooded and forced face down by police on a highway.
The family of Daniel Prude, 41, said he died on March 30 after being removed from life support, seven days after his arrest by police in the city of Rochester.
He is the last African-American to die after a run-in with law enforcement, cases that have galvanized protests across the United States.
“The Prude family and the Rochester community have been through great pain and anguish,” New York State Attorney General Letitia James said in a statement.
“My office will move immediately to form a grand jury as part of our comprehensive investigation into this matter,” he said.
The announcement came the day after protesters, some wearing helmets and shields, clashed with police during a demonstration in Rochester sparked by Prude’s death.
Prude’s family and activists made his death public last Wednesday, after receiving body camera images through an open records request.
Joe Prude told reporters that he had called the police on March 23 because his brother was suffering from a mental health episode.
“I made a phone call for my brother to get help, not to get lynched,” Joe Prude said.
When officers arrived, Daniel Prude was unarmed and naked on the road, according to the video.
Prude, who initially complied with the rules, was ordered by the police to drop to the ground, but after being handcuffed, he became increasingly nervous.
The officers then put a “spitting hood” on him and forced him to rest his head against the pavement.
Moments later he lost consciousness and died in a hospital a week later when life support was cut off.
Local media said an autopsy ruled the death a homicide caused by “complications from suffocation under physical restraint.”
[ad_2]