The daughter of a Chicago man who died after Rochester, N.Y., police detained him in March for running naked in the street while in some sort of mental distress blamed “racist” police officers for her father’s death on Thursday.
During a press conference held remotely, Prude’s 18-year-old daughter Tashyrah Prude pointed out that her father appeared to follow all police commands in video of the incident released by family this week before his death by asphyxiation in Rochester police custody.
“A racist police officer saw a Black man in need and decided that he just didn’t deserve to live,” Tashyrah Prude said.
“I don’t understand how anybody could say or feel like he was a threat to the police when he complied with all orders,” she continued, adding: “There’s nothing that anyone could say that could convince me that he was a threat to the police officers.”
Daniel Prude’s daughter Tashyra Prude: “I don’t understand how anybody could say or feel like he was a threat to the police when he complied with all orders … A racist police officer saw a Black man in need and decided that he just didn’t deserve to live.” pic.twitter.com/FWWKsBSPJG
— The Recount (@therecount) September 3, 2020
Officers are seen on the video slamming Prude’s face into the pavement and placing a so-called “spit hood” over his head. New York’s attorney general, Letitia James (D), has reportedly been investigating the incident for months.
A medical examiner ruled that Prude, 41, was the victim of a homicide as a result of “complications of asphyxia in the setting of physical restraint,” while noting that he also was found to have the hallucinogenic drug PCP in his system.
The city’s mayor said at a press conference Wednesday that officials had declined to release information about Prude’s death before now due to the ongoing AG investigation.
“I want everyone to understand that at no point in time did we feel that this was something that we wanted not to disclose,” Rochester Mayor Lovely Warren (D) said. “We are precluded from getting involved in it until that agency [the AG’s office] has completed their investigation.”
