Prosecutors overseeing a major jury inquiry into the death of Daniel Prude last year in Rochester, New York, have dropped the case for criminal charges with testimony from a medical expert who said three police officers found Prude on the ground held until he stopped breathing did not say. do anything wrong.
Dr. Gary Vilke told the jury that Prude, a 41-year-old black man, died of a heart attack caused by the medical phenomenon known as excited delirium. He said the actions of the officers, who placed a mesh over Prude’s head, had no effect on his breathing, according to the transcripts released Friday.
A medical examiner determined that Prude’s death was a homicide due to suffocation due to a physical limitation, using the drug PCP as a factor.
Vilke, a San Diego University of California professor who regularly testifies on behalf of police, said Prude’s restraint during the meeting in the early hours of March 23, 2020, was possibly best for his safety, given his condition.
To a great jury member or something better could be done, Vilke replied, “I would do nothing else.”
The transcript finally shows that the grand jury criminally rejected negligent manslaughter against the three officers by 15-5 votes.
Prosecutors from the State Attorney – General’s office did not file any other charges. They told major jurors that they could choose not to charge if they believed the use of force was justified. Five jurors indicated they would vote to indict at least one of the officers.
The grand jury’s decision not to charge was announced when it was taken in February, but the transcripts of nine days’ testimony from witnesses – including Prude’s brother, police officers and experts – provide a rare window into a process that is normally supervised.
The rude family lawyer Elliot Shields said he believes prosecutors undermined their own case by calling Vilke, who he compared to a defense witness.
“Obviously they did not even try,” Shields told The Associated Press.
“They hired him so he could come in and they could get coverage and say, ‘Well, we tried. “Now no, you have not,” Shields said. “You tried to make sure these officers got away with it.”
Attorney General of New York, Letitia James, said in announcing the decision of the grand jury that the state could state the best case.
Her office on Friday defended the use of Vilke as an expert and said he promised an independent investigation without a predetermined outcome.
The release of material for grand juries comes at a sensitive time for the issue of race in policing. Evidence ends in the trial of Derek Chauvin, a former Minneapolis officer, over the murder of George Floyd. And on Thursday, a video camera video was released showing a Chicago police officer 13-year-old Adam Toledo fatally shot last month after apparently dropping a gun and starting to raise his hands.
Prude encountered police hours after he was released from a hospital after a mental health arrest. He ran naked from his brother’s house and saw him basking in shop windows. Prude’s brother, Joe, testified that he warned an officer responding to his home, “Do not kill my brother.”
Prude’s death passed largely unnoticed until September, when his family released a video from the camera of the encounter obtained through a public record request. E-mails later released by the city showed police commanders urging city officials to release the footage.
The video showed Prude handcuffed and naked with a spittoon over his head when one officer pressed his face to the ground and another officer pressed a knee to his back. Officers held Prude for two minutes until he stopped breathing. He was taken off for life a week later.
Vilke told the grand jury that drug use and mental illness contribute to excited delirium, which can make people vulnerable to cardiac arrest. There is no generally accepted definition of excited delirium and researchers said it is not well understood.
Vilke said he did not think the spit hood was a factor, or that officers were obstructing Prude’s breathing.
“All of these things therefore make me feel comfortable saying that my opinion is that none of the officers, individually or collectively, would have caused or contributed to its impact,” Vilke said. “And, to go one step further, if he was allowed to get up and run around … it would actually be more detrimental than being held.”
Shields, the lawyer for the Prude family, cites Vilke’s claim that the restriction of Prude was safer than ‘outrageous’.
An official testified that police used the hood because Prude spat and that they were careful to get sick in the early days of the pandemic.
“I do not know if you remember exactly the coronavirus, how we felt, but it was almost hysteria in the country,” the unknown official said.
The state also presented the grand jury testimony of Geoffrey Alpert, a professor of criminology at the University of South Carolina who previously worked as a federal monitor for the New Orleans Police Department.
Alpert also testified that spitting caps do not restrict breathing. He said it was reasonable for officers to pin Prude to the ground, calling it a generally safe way of confinement.
But he said officers probably kept Prude on his stomach for an unreasonably long time, though he added that he was not a medical doctor and could not say whether it contributed to his death.
The recordings of Prude’s arrest and self-restraint sparked nocturnal protests in Rochester, a rust-belt town on the shores of Lake Ontario that were recently stirred by a camera footage of white officers with pepper spray on a 9-year-old black girl..
James, whose office is investigating police shootings, obtained a judge’s permission to divulge the usually secret material of the grand jury, citing a desire for transparency in Prude’s case. The transcripts were released with the names of witnesses black.
Seven officers, including the three involved in Prude, remain suspended pending the outcome of an internal investigation.
Matthew Rich, an attorney for four officers who responded but were not involved in Prude’s self-control, questioned the closed-door process that paved the way for the release of the transcripts. Nevertheless, he wrote in a letter to the judge last month that he and his clients “have nothing to hide.”
One major jury member from Prude praised the prosecution team’s “amazing work”.
“If that were not all you presented to us, I do not think anyone would have come up with a decision. “You worked very hard and I’m sure no one took it lightly,” the juror said. “It was a very serious matter. It’s terrible what happened to him. ”
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Associated Press reporters Larry Neumeister, Thalia Beaty, Jennifer Peltz, Jim Mustian and David B. Caruso in New York; Carolyn Thompson in Buffalo and Michael Hill in Albany contributed to this report.
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