Daniel Prude's daughter speaks out after father's 'spit hood' death: My dad is not the animal they treated him like

Kit Heren4 September 2020

The daughter of Daniel Prude, a black man who died at the hands of the police, has spoken out about his death, saying: "My dad is not an animal."

Mr Prude, 41, died in March in Rochester, New York, after police handcuffed him, put a restraining hood over his head and pressed his face into the ground for three minutes.

He died in hospital several days later, but the incident has only come to light since Mr Prude's family shared police's body camera footage.

Tashyra Prude, 18, said in a self-filmed video that her father would be remembered as "vibrant" and the "life of the party."

She said: "My dad is not the animal that they treated him like.

"That is a human being; that is my father. That is somebody's brother, son, cousin, nephew...

"This was one of the most loving people I have ever known in my life. MY father was a protector... he would do anything for his family."

Seven officers have been suspended with pay over the incident – but Mr Prude's daughter hit out at their treatment as a "paid vacation" and called the officers' suspension "a slap in the face".

She added: "I don’t understand how anybody could say or feel like he was a threat to the police when he complied with all orders."

She later told CBS News: "[The suspension] is just a slap in the face, especially with pay.

"That's a paid vacation, if you ask me. That's beyond disrespectful to me, my siblings and the rest of my family and to everybody who cared about my father."

Officers were originally called by Mr Prude's family, who dialled 911 to report him missing after he was taken to hospital for suicidal thoughts.

A report into his death called it a homicide, attributing it to "complications of asphyxia in the setting of physical restraint," as well as "excited delirium" and intoxication with the drug PCP.

Ms Prude said she was unaware of her father's mental health problems or drug use.

Daniel Prude
AP

She added: "So when I look at [the footage], it's just like man, my father was hurting, and he needed help, and it makes me feel bad because as his child, I wish I could have been there to help in a way. I wish I could have been there to calm my father down, and I couldn't do that. So just seeing the footage, it breaks me down."

Peaceful protests broke out in Rochester, a city of about 200,000 people, after news emerged of the way Mr Prude died.

Activists are demanding that the officers involved be prosecuted on murder charges.

Rochester mayor Lovely Warren announced the suspension of officers at a press conference on Thursday.

“Mr Daniel Prude was failed by the police department, our mental health care system, our society and he was failed by me,” Ms Warren said.

She said the officers would still be paid because of contract rules.

Antonio Romanucci, Ms Prude's lawyer, hit out at Rochester officials for not releasing information earlier.

"It's so hard to hear the fact that we're always told 'we're not trying to cover anything up,'" he told CBS News. "Well, you may not be covering it up, but you're certainly hiding it from the public. Five months is an awfully long time for us not to see something that we know is patently wrong."

The Rochester police department said case information had not been released earlier because the New York attorney general was investigating.