(CNN) — The family of a black man in Rochester, New York, is calling for the firing and arrest of all the police officers involved in his death in March, who they say put a bag over his head.
Daniel Prude was having a mental health episode on March 23 when his brother Joe Prude called the Rochester Police Department for help, the family said at a news conference Wednesday. Joe Prude claimed that Daniel stopped breathing after police knelt on him while he was handcuffed.
When he was taken to the hospital 15 minutes later, he was brain dead, Joe Prude said.
Organizers of the Free the People Roc group, a Black Lives Matter group, named three officers who they say were involved in the incident. CNN is working to confirm their identities and is not naming them at this time.
Daniel Prude’s family at a press conference on Wednesday.
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Body camera images
The disturbers images Body cameras from the incident, which were provided to CNN by Prude’s attorneys, compile the body cameras from various officers and have been edited together to show different angles of the incident.
During the first minutes of the approximately 11-minute encounter with the police, Prude, who is handcuffed, repeats the phrase “in Jesus Christ I pray, amen.” He also makes several comments about going for his money to catch a plane and asks for the policemen’s weapons and to stay away from him.
He video shows Prude naked in the middle of a city street at 3:16 am when filming begins.
An officer gets out of his squad car, walks up to Prude and asks her six times to get down on the ground while the policeman points a taser gun at him. Prude obeys and is asked to put her hands behind her back, which she does quickly. Then the agent handcuffs him while Prude says “yes sir” several times.
Several other police officers arrive on the scene and one appears to identify Prude by name.
Three minutes after the incident begins, an agent places a bag over Prude’s head. He rolls on the ground screaming various things.
Prude appears to be attempting to stand up at approximately 3:20 a.m., and three officers approach to pin him down and keep him on the ground. Police say Prude is spitting and appears to have vomited. Three minutes and 10 seconds after the restraint, an officer says “he started vomiting, now it seems he doesn’t even have chest compressions.”
They call in the medical technician for help, who instructs a police officer to turn Prude over and perform chest compressions, which they do.
Prude appears unresponsive and is loaded into an ambulance at 3:27 am, 11 minutes after the first officer arrived on the scene.
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Commemoration in Rochester, New York.
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Attorneys consider wrongful death lawsuit
Lawyers for the family say the video shows the officers taunting and teasing Daniel, leaving him handcuffed and naked on the ground and placing a bag over his head.
Elliot Shields, one of the family attorneys, said the attorneys are in the preliminary stages of filing a wrongful death lawsuit. Shields said one of the reasons the family had not spoken publicly about the incident earlier was that it took time to obtain the images from the body camera and there were no other recordings of what happened.
“How many more brothers had to die for society to understand that this must end?” Prude said. And I can’t even share with all of you the pain I’m feeling, and what my family is going through as well.
An investigation is currently in the hands of the New York attorney general’s office, Rochester Mayor Lovely A. Warren and Police Chief La’Ron D. Singletary said when addressing reporters Wednesday for the evening and offered their condolences to the Prude family.
Singletary told reporters that none of the police officers involved in the incident are on suspension, pending the outcome of the attorney general’s investigation. The attorney general officially took over the case on April 16, Warren said.
Singletary also said that the morning after Prude’s meeting with police, he opened a criminal and internal investigation into the incident. Warren said that after Prude’s death, he was informed by the Rochester legal department that this investigation was within the scope of the attorney general and that nothing could be done locally until that investigation was completed.
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo signed into law a bill in June that designates the attorney general as an independent prosecutor for matters related to the killing of unarmed civilians caused by law enforcement. The measure is technically codifying a decree that Cuomo ordered in 2014 in the wake of Eric Garner’s death after a police officer strangled him.
“Daniel Prude’s death was a tragedy, and I extend my deepest condolences to his family. I share the community’s concerns about ensuring a fair and independent investigation into his death and support his right to protest, ”New York Attorney General Letitia James said in a statement released Wednesday, acknowledging an active investigation.
While neither the chief nor the mayor provided details of the incident or discussed what can be seen in the police body camera footage, Warren acknowledged that as soon as the attorney general’s investigation is over, authorities will be able to provide the police. family the information they deserve.
Warren also said the date of death was March 30, a week after the incident.
Prude testified Wednesday that the police had killed a defenseless black man and called Daniel’s death “cold-blooded murder.”
Attorneys for the Prude family say that “there are no questions when everyone watches body camera videos, they are going to see a murder.”
CNN’s Melanie Schuman, Elizabeth Hartfield, and Rob Frehse contributed to this report.
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