AP

City to pay $12M to kin of Prude, Black man killed by police

Oct 6, 2022, 8:46 AM | Updated: 8:47 pm

ROCHESTER, N.Y. (AP) — City officials agreed to pay $12 million to the children of Daniel Prude, a Black man who died after police held him down until he stopped breathing on a snowy street in Rochester, New York.

A federal judge approved the settlement in a court document filed Thursday. Rochester Mayor Malik D. Evans said in a statement that the agreement was “the best decision” for the city.

“It would have cost taxpayers even more to litigate, and would have placed a painful toll on our community,” said Evans, who wasn’t in office when Prude died in March 2020.

The settlement money, minus lawyers’ fees and costs, will go to Prude’s five children, who are heirs to the estate, attorneys said.

“I think that it’s an amount of money that is sufficient to show that the City of Rochester recognizes that something very bad happened and that it’s very important for the city to put it in the rearview mirror and move forward,” said lawyer Matthew Piers, who represents the administrator of the estate.

The agreement is the latest in a number of settlements involving police killings of Black people in the U.S. in the last decade. Among them: a $27 million agreement with the family of George Floyd and a $12 million settlement with relatives of Breonna Taylor. Their 2020 deaths — his in Minneapolis, hers in Louisville, Kentucky — ignited protests around the country and fueled a reckoning on racial justice and policing.

A killing that became an earlier catalyst for the Black Lives Matter movement — the 2014 police shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri — led to a $1.5 million settlement. In a lawsuit stemming from the chokehold death of Eric Garner that same year, New York City settled with his family for about $6 million.

Just this August, three towns on Maryland’s Eastern Shore reached a $5 million settlement with relatives of Anton Black, who was chased, handcuffed and shackled by police before he stopped breathing in rural Greensboro in 2018. The family is continuing to pursue a case against the state medical examiner’s office.

Police confronted 41-year-old Prude in March 2020 after his brother called to say the man needed mental health help. Prude had been taken to a hospital for a psychiatric evaluation earlier that night but was released after a few hours, and later bolted from his brother’s home.

After officers found him running naked through the streets, police video showed that Prude complied with police demands to get on the ground and put his hands behind his back. He became agitated as he sat, handcuffed, on the pavement.

Police then put a hood over his head to stop him from spitting, and held him down for about two minutes until his breathing stopped. He died several days later after being taken off life support.

The county medical examiner said his death was a homicide caused by “complications of asphyxia in the setting of physical restraint” and cited the drug PCP as a contributing factor.

The officers said they followed their training. A grand jury last year declined to bring criminal charges against them.

The relatives’ lawyers said Prude’s constitutional rights were violated by the police actions and what the family called an attempted cover-up by the department and city government.

Released emails showed that in June 2020, Rochester police commanders urged city officials to hold off on publicly releasing the video because they feared violent blowback if it came out during nationwide protests that were then unfolding over Floyd’s murder by Minneapolis police.

Prude’s family eventually obtained the video and released it in September 2020.

Copyright © The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

AP

FILE - Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., leaves the chamber at the Capitol in Washingt...

Associated Press

McCarthy rejects Senate spending bill while scrambling for a House plan that averts a shutdown

A government shutdown appeared all but inevitable as House Speaker Kevin McCarthy dug in Thursday.

4 days ago

(Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)...

Associated Press

Kari Lake reportedly plans to launch US Senate bid in Arizona for seat held by Kyrsten Sinema

Republican Kari Lake will soon launch her campaign for the U.S. Senate seat held by independent Kyrsten Sinema, a senior adviser said Thursday.

4 days ago

Republican presidential candidates, from left, former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, former New Jers...

Associated Press

3rd Republican presidential debate is set for Nov. 8 in Miami, with the strictest qualifications yet

The third Republican presidential debate will be held in Miami on Nov. 8, a day after several states hold off-year elections.

10 days ago

During the equinox, the Earth’s axis and its orbit line up so that both hemispheres get an equal ...

Associated Press

The fall equinox is here. What does that mean?

The equinox arrives on Saturday, marking the start of the fall season for the Northern Hemisphere. But what does that actually mean?

10 days ago

Ray Epps Ray Epps, an Arizona man who became the center of a conspiracy theory about Jan. 6, 2021, ...

Associated Press

Ray Epps, an Arizona man who supported Trump, pleads guilty to Capital riot charge

Ray Epps, the target of a conspiracy theory about the Jan. 6, 2021, attack, pleaded guilty on Wednesday to a misdemeanor charge.

12 days ago

Former President Donald Trump repeatedly declined in an interview aired Sunday, Sept. 17, 2023, to ...

Associated Press

Trump refuses to say in a TV interview how he watched the Jan. 6 attack unfold at the US Capitol

Former President Donald Trump repeatedly declined in an interview aired Sunday to answer questions about whether he watched the Capitol riot.

15 days ago

Sponsored Articles

...

DAY & NIGHT AIR CONDITIONING, HEATING AND PLUMBING

Importance of AC maintenance after Arizona’s excruciating heat wave

An air conditioning unit in Phoenix is vital to living a comfortable life inside, away from triple-digit heat.

...

Ignite Digital

How to unlock the power of digital marketing for Phoenix businesses

All businesses around the Valley hopes to maximize their ROI with current customers and secure a greater market share in the digital sphere.

...

re:vitalize

When most diets fail, re:vitalize makes a difference that shows

Staying healthy and losing weight are things many people in Arizona are conscious of, especially during the summer.

City to pay $12M to kin of Prude, Black man killed by police