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Daniel Prude needed mental health assistance.
Today, the officers involved were suspended. |
John,
Last night, newly-released police bodycam footage shocked the nation — and we were heartbroken and enraged by what we saw.
Daniel Prude, a 41-year-old Black man in need of mental health assistance, was murdered by Rochester, New York police in March.1 To make matters worse, the seven police officers involved in his murder remained on active duty up until just a few hours ago when Rochester's mayor announced their suspension.2
John, a suspension more than five months later isn't enough. We are sick and tired of police officers murdering us and getting away with it — and we need your help to fight back right now.
Demand justice for Daniel Prude: Tell Rochester District Attorney Sandra Doorley to arrest and charge the police officers who murdered Daniel in March. Trained medical and mental health professionals — not cops — should respond to medical calls.
We probably would have never heard about this case if Daniel's family and organizers at Free The People Roc hadn't obtained and released the brutal minute-by-minute bodycam footage. We're not uplifting the bodycam footage depicting Daniel's tragic murder, but here's what we know, John:
On March 22, Daniel Prude arrived in Rochester to visit his brother, Joe. When Daniel began acting strangely and threatened to harm himself, Joe called the police for help. Daniel was taken to the hospital and released hours later — and in the early morning hours of March 23, Daniel bolted out the back door and into the cold, snowy street.
Joe called the police again. He explained that Daniel was experiencing a mental health crisis, that his brother was naked in the street, and that he was only a danger to himself. Joe begged the responding police officers not to kill his brother. They didn't listen.
Body camera footage shows Officer Mark Vaughn threatening Daniel with a taser and telling him to get on the ground with his hands behind his back. He immediately complies and is handcuffed without incident. At least five Rochester police officers stand over Daniel, who is lying on the cold, wet ground with his hands bound.
The footage shows Daniel Prude — who is clearly in the throes of a mental health crisis — complying with the police. That didn't save him. Instead of helping him or calming him down, police officers mocked Daniel. And what the video shows next is nothing short of a public lynching.
Officer Vaughn pulls a "spit sock" out of his pocket and puts it over Daniel's head. Then, Vaughn pushes Daniel's face into the ground while another officer, Troy Taladay, kneels on Daniel's back. Daniel repeatedly asks the officers to get off of him before he falls silent.
The police officers don't listen. They knelt on his back and pushed his face to the ground for so long that Daniel stopped breathing — just like how police officers in Minneapolis murdered George Floyd in the street.
By the time emergency medical technicians arrive in an ambulance, Daniel Prude had stopped moving. The EMTs perform CPR, and the officers uncuff Prude and get him onto a gurney. At this point, Daniel Prude is brain dead from oxygen deprivation. His family decided to take him off life support one week later. And although Daniel's death was ruled a homicide by asphyxia (suffocation) due to "physical restraint,"3 not one Rochester police officer responsible for Prude’s murder has been punished or fired.
John, people like you in your city and around the world came together to demand justice for George Floyd. We started a critical national conversation on police violence — and we are still seeing that conversation lead to encouraging steps in the right direction. Now, it's up to us to demand justice for Daniel Prude and continue to defend Black lives.
Demand Justice for Daniel Prude now
Daniel needed care — not handcuffs, not shame, and definitely not a public execution. The responding police officers didn’t offer Daniel a blanket or help him get off the cold, hard ground. They didn’t ask if he was cold or what was wrong. They didn’t try to calm Daniel down until trained medical responders arrived on the scene. They offered Daniel Prude no compassion or even humane treatment. Instead, they mocked him, covered his face, and murdered him in the street. And until now, they got away with it.
Daniel's tragic story is EXACTLY what we mean when we say "defund the police," John. Time and time again, we have seen that police are not equipped to respond to mental health crises. We have seen cities rely on untrained and violent police officers to respond to medical emergencies, mental health crises, minor disputes, and people who are unhoused and just trying to survive. We have seen Black people become victims of police brutality through no fault of their own. We have seen too many Black people who need care be murdered by police.
What's worse are the cases that we DON'T see. We would have never known about this story — a tragedy that took place four months ago — without Prude's family and organizers in Rochester sounding the alarm yesterday. And for every video of police brutality released to the public, there are countless incidents that were never filmed. There are countless stories that we will never hear, names that we will never know.
But what we do know — and what the police shooting of Jacob Blake and the brutal, videotaped murders of George Floyd and Daniel Prude make crystal clear — is that police are NOT equipped to keep Black, Brown, and Indigenous people safe.
It is obvious from the bodycam footage that Daniel Prude was at the lowest point of his life at that moment. The last people who should be responding to a mental health crisis are racist police officers with guns and tasers. We must do everything in our power to ensure that what happened to Daniel Prude never happens to anyone in this country again.
Daniel Prude deserved care. Instead, he was murdered by police.
Now, Daniel deserves justice. His family deserves justice. John, stand with us to demand that the officers who brutally murdered Daniel Prude are charged and arrested immediately. Add your name to demand that Rochester requires trained medical and mental health professionals as first responders to medical calls.
John, we know you are tired. We are tired, too. But we have to keep fighting to end police violence — and to defend Black lives everywhere.
As always, thank you for taking action with us.
Until justice is real,
-- Scott, Rashad, Arisha, Erika, Malachi, Marybeth, Ernie, Madison, Leonard, McKayla and the rest of the Color of Change Team
References:
1. "His brother called for help after he was acting strangely. Police knelt on him until he was brain dead." 02 September 2020, The Appeal.
2. "7 Rochester Police Officers Suspended in Death of Black Man Whom They Hooded." 03 September 2020, The New York Times.
3. "Autopsy report: Daniel Prude death ruled a homicide, died from asphyxia due to ‘physical restraint.'" 02 September 2020, Rochester First.
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