The city of Rochester, in the north of the State of New York, has decided to pay 12 million dollars (a similar amount in euros) to the family of Daniel Prude, who died asphyxiated at the hands of the local police on March 23, 2020.
“It is time to look forward so that we can work together and focus our efforts on the future of Rochester,” said the mayor, Malik D. Evans, after learning of the out-of-court settlement. On a more practical note, he added: “Given the costs of litigation, this settlement is the best decision. To follow [con el proceso] It would have cost taxpayers a lot of money, plus it would have caused great harm to our community.”
That day, Prude, a native of Chicago, was visiting this town of about 200,000 people near the Canadian border. He began to walk naked through the streets under the influence of PCP (phencyclidine), a powerful drug that is used as a hallucinogenic drug. His brother notified the police, as well as a truck driver, who alerted officers that Prude was running around yelling that he had coronavirus. All this happened in the first days of global confinement due to the pandemic.
When he was arrested, he did not resist, as was verified six months later, when the family made public the recording of the body camera of one of the four agents who participated in the arrest. They sat him down on the snow-covered ground, and another placed a white hood on his head. In the United States, police wear them to prevent detainees from spitting or vomiting on officers. After a while, and without the suspect stopping screaming, they smashed his head against the asphalt for about two minutes and 15 seconds. Prude survived until the ambulance arrived.
In the hospital he lasted seven days, connected to a machine from which he was finally unplugged on March 30. After the video surfaced, seven police officers were suspended, and the chief of the force, La’Ron Singletary, resigned a few days after the publication of internal documents that revealed that his department spent months trying to cover up the case, among other things, exaggerating the mental health problems of the victim. “That he seems suspicious”, could be read in one of those documents. Finally, all the agents involved were acquitted in February of last year after a trial.
Four months before the family released the video of Prude’s death, the murder in Minneapolis of George Floyd, also by suffocation and also at the hands of the police, caused a social outburst against the racist violence of the security forces in the United States. Joined. Prude’s death also sparked outrage from the Black Lives Matter movement.
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The agreement reached this Thursday discharge of responsibility to the city of Rochester. Prude’s family has issued a statement through his lawyer: “[La cantidad pactada] It’s enough of a sum to show that Rochester recognizes that something terrible happened and that the city has to work to put it behind us and look to the future.” The $12 million, less attorneys’ fees, will be shared equally by Prude’s five children.
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