In the final analysis, the decision not to publicly disclose these facts rested with Mayor Warren, as the elected Mayor of the City of Rochester. But Mayor Warren alone is not responsible for the suppression of the circumstances of the Prude Arrest and Mr. Prude s death, an independent report concluded. Adrian Kraus / AP
Rochester city officials, including the former police chief and the mayor, knowingly suppressed information from getting to the public, and some officials made untrue statements about the events leading to the death of Daniel Prude, a Black man experiencing a mental health episode who was asphyxiated by police while restrained and handcuffed.
Report: Rochester Police, Mayor ‘Knowingly Suppressed’ Information In Prude Case
By Vanessa Romo
March 12, 2021
Rochester city officials, including the former police chief and the mayor, “knowingly suppressed” information from getting to the public, and some officials made “untrue statements” about the events leading to the death of Daniel Prude, a Black man experiencing a mental health episode who was asphyxiated by police while restrained and handcuffed.
An independent report released on Friday chronicles how ex-Rochester Police Chief La’Ron Singletary and Mayor Lovely Warren, over the course of more than five months, took deliberate steps to avoid disclosing the disturbing nature of the encounter between Prude and the officers. Their actions, the investigation concluded, were prompted by fears of potential protests and violence amid a national reckoning about the death of unarmed Black people in police custody.
Rochester mayor and top officials ‘suppressed’ information about Daniel Prude’s death, independent report says
An independent investigation commissioned by the Rochester, New York, City Council found that four key city officials including Mayor Lovely Warren suppressed information surrounding the death of Daniel Prude, the 41-year-old Black man who died last year in police custody.
The report, conducted by the law firm of Emery Celli Brinckerhoff Abady Ward & Maazel LLP, was released by the Rochester City Council Friday.
According to the report, Warren, former Police Chief La’Ron Singletary, corporation counsel Timothy Curtin, and Rochester communications director Justin Roj were all aware by “mid-April 2020” that a medical examiner had determined that Prude died from “asphyxia in the setting of physical restraint” by Rochester police officers who were under criminal investigation for their conduct.
An investigation into the official response to Daniel Prude’s police suffocation death last year in Rochester, N.Y., is faulting the city’s mayor and former police chief for keeping critical details of the case secret for months and lying to the public about what they knew.
A report released Friday faults the city’s mayor and former police chief for lying to the public about what they knew of Daniel Prude's suffocation death while in custody.