Officers Involved In Death Of Daniel Prude Will Not Be Charged

The officers involved in the death of Daniel Prude will not be charged.

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  • All Seven Cops Off the Hook for Daniel Prude’s Suffocation Death

    Photo Illustration by The Daily Beast/Handount/Roth and Roth LLP, via Associated PressAll seven Rochester officers involved in the death of Daniel Prude, a 41-year-old Black man who suffocated to death after police pinned him to the ground, have been cleared of wrongdoing, authorities said Tuesday.New York Attorney General Letitia James said that while her office “presented the strongest case possible,” a grand jury decided “not to indict any officers” involved in the March 23, 2020 death. James also released a 204-page report into Prude’s death, which states that he initially complied with authorities during his arrest and was in need of mental medical assistance.“I know that the Prude family, the Rochester community, and communities across the country will rightly be disappointed by this outcome,” James said, adding that while she is “extremely disappointed” and wanted a different criminal outcome, “ultimately we have to respect the decision.”“The system too often allows officers to use deadly force unnecessarily and without consequence,” she added. “The criminal justice system is badly in need of reform. The system was built to protect and shield officers from accountability.”Entire Rochester Police Leadership Resigns After Daniel Prude DeathAuthorities say Prude, who was visiting Rochester from Chicago, was in the midst of a psychotic episode and under the influence of the recreational drug PCP when his brother called 911. During an altercation, police ordered Prude, who said he had COVID-19 and began spitting, onto the ground. While pinning him down, officers handcuffed him and put a mesh hood over his head.Prude was held down for at least two minutes before officers attempted to resuscitate him. He died of homicide asphyxiation on March 30, after a week in a coma. The Monroe County Medical Examiner’s Office ruled Prude’s death a homicide, stating he died from “complications of asphyxia in the setting of physical restraint.” The report showed that Prude had a small amount of PCP in his system at the time of his death, explaining his erratic behavior during the arrest.Seven Rochester police officers involved in Prude’s death—Mark Vaughn, Troy Taladay, Paul Ricotta, Francisco Santiago, Andrew Specksgoor, Josiah Harris, and Sgt. Michael Magri—were suspended without pay. In December, the City of Rochester’s Office of Public Integrity released its report about the incident, concluding it found “no evidence” that any city employee violated any "policies or ethical standards" in Prude's death.James stressed Tuesday that Prude was in need of “compassion, care, and help from trained professionals,” pointing to the need for “serious reform” in the Rochester Police Department and “our criminal justice system as a whole.” She said she was seeking to amend the New York state law on the use of force, to address the “very issues that have prevented us from holding officers accountable when they improperly use deadly force” and ensure cops in the field have the training to help people in need.She also called for grand jury reform, saying the current laws around its secrecy are “out of date” and should be relaxed to allow transparency for people who are owed answers about the process behind some criminal outcomes.In the wake of George Floyd’s May 2020 death, protesters called for renewed scrutiny of several fatalities at the hands of police including Prude’s, which didn’t receive national attention until September when shocking body camera footage of the incident was released.In the footage, Prude is seen walking outside around 3 a.m., naked and covered in blood. Joe Prude said his brother had thrown himself down the basement stairs headfirst earlier that night before he ran out the back door.The video shows Prude lying on the ground in compliance as Joe begs officers not to kill his brother, according to The Appeal. As five officers handcuff him, however, Prude is heard to shout and spit at them, claiming to be infected with COVID-19.Officers then put Prude in a “spit hood,” which he asked them to remove. At one point, while sitting up and surrounded by officers, Prude is heard yelling, “Gimme that gun! I mean it!” As police pushed him down, he said, “You’re trying to kill me!”One of the officers, later identified as Vaughn, is then seen using both hands to push Prude’s face down while Taladay puts his knee to his back. A third restrained his legs.In his report of the incident, Vaughn said he used a “hypoglossal nerve technique” on Prude, which involves jamming two fingers to hit a nerve between the jaw and neck. Vaughn is seen in the video holding Prude for two minutes and 15 seconds. When he checks in on Prude again, he is unresponsive.According to the police report, Prude’s heartbeat was restored during the ambulance ride to a nearby hospital—but he was already brain dead. In the body-camera footage, Joe Prude is heard asking officers if his brother, who was on his way to the hospital, cooperated. The police officer present replied, “Yeah.”Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.

  • Merkel says COVID variants risk third virus wave, must proceed carefully

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  • Wanted: More high-tech manufacturing space for a global vaccine push

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  • Left out of MeToo: New initiative focuses on Black survivors

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  • There’s a Way to Fix the Vaccine Appointment Mess

    Mario Tama/GettyIf you’ve tried to get a COVID-19 vaccine appointment, you know how frustrating the process can be. People are spending hours obsessively refreshing websites, hoping an appointment will open up somewhere. They scan Facebook groups for tips and insider information. One writer compared it to Soviet-style queues for cabbage.The competition for slots will only worsen when the COVID-19 vaccination priority list opens to the broader public.It doesn’t have to be this way. Much of this misery comes from poorly designed vaccine sign-up websites, but the problem is more fundamental.As an expert in health care operations and vaccine supply chains, I have closely followed the difficulties in connecting COVID-19 vaccine doses with people. I believe the best solution to vaccine appointment scheduling lies in building a trustworthy one-stop preregistration system. The U.S. has now surpassed half a million deaths from COVID-19, and new fast-spreading variants of the coronavirus are adding to the urgency. As states scramble to speed up vaccinations and try to prevent their limited doses going to waste, a handful of them are testing this approach.The traditional vaccine sign-up model does not work when the demand for vaccines far exceeds supply.Under that model, the only way to get vaccinated is to reserve an appointment slot. Naturally, the fear of being left out drives people to attempt to sign up as soon as appointment slots become available. This leads to a rush of people endlessly refreshing the same websites for the few appointments available.Even if all states had one-stop appointment websites that did not crash under high volume, the limited vaccine supply would mean most appointment slots would quickly be taken. That could make it even harder for people who aren’t tech-savvy to get the vaccine.To fix the broken vaccine scheduling system, we need to break this cycle. 1299353966 Teacher Lily Gottlieb waits in a socially distanced standby line for people hoping to receive leftover COVID-19 vaccine doses in Encino, California. Mario Tama/Getty Most people have fairly realistic expectations about when they will be vaccinated. Their anxiety comes from the fear of being left out. To address this anxiety, the system must be designed to reassure people that they will receive vaccines within a reasonable time frame.In Israel, which leads the world in COVID-19 vaccination, citizens do not need to actively sign up for vaccine appointments. Rather, they are notified when they become eligible via text messages and can then make an appointment.States can echo this “push” system by creating a one-stop preregistration portal where everyone registers once and is notified to schedule appointments when their turn arrives. The preregistration step helps avoid waves of people trying to get appointments at the same time, which can crash computer systems, as Massachusetts experienced on Feb. 18.A good system will make it easy for people to check their position in the vaccine queue at any time, provide an estimated time to vaccination based on frequently updated supply information and then send notifications when their date is getting close. Underlying the system, vaccine doses can be allocated among eligible users on the registry using a lottery system.A well-designed preregistration system can also help avoid vaccine doses going to waste because of no-shows. With an active waitlist, vaccine planners can match supply with demand in an agile manner and offer appointments to people a few days in advance rather than scheduling appointments weeks out when the supply isn’t certain. Research in appointment scheduling has shown that no-shows are more likely under long lead times. People line up in the rain outside the Yankee Stadium for vaccinations reserved for residents of The Bronx. Timothy A. Clary/Getty West Virginia uses a statewide preregistration system and has so far been more successful at vaccinating its population than almost every other state. It controls the process from preregistration to appointment. To get the vaccine, almost all residents, with a few exceptions, are required to use the state system, with options to register either online or by phone.Minnesota just launched a similar system. “We still have a frustratingly limited vaccine supply from the federal government, but every Minnesotan should know their chance to get a vaccine will come. Today, we are connecting them directly to that process,” Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz said in announcing the preregistration system on Feb. 18.More states should follow their lead as more of the general population becomes eligible for the vaccine in the coming months.In Massachusetts, where a vaccine sign-up website crashed shortly after launching, nearly every member of the state’s congressional delegation has urged Gov. Charlie Baker to launch a preregistration system. A few other states already have limited preregistration systems that could be expanded.Preregistration can still create confusion if the process isn’t coordinated and users don’t know what to expect.In Virginia, for example, counties created their own preregistration systems, but when the pharmacy chain CVS announced it was taking appointments, users didn’t know what to do. Most Virginia counties are now shifting to a statewide preregistration system. In Santa Cruz County, California, residents have struggled with a preregistration portal that doesn’t provide confirmation or an estimated time to vaccination.“Efficiency-equity trade-off” has become a buzzword in discussing COVID-19 vaccination. With limited vaccine supply, the traditional sign-up model has proven to be both inefficient and inequitable. Moving away from that model and establishing one-stop preregistration systems is one key to resolving the painful vaccine scheduling process.Tinglong Dai is an associate professor of operations management & business analytics, at the Johns Hopkins Carey Business School, Johns Hopkins University School of NursingRead more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.

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  • Texas Lt. Gov. says that people getting huge energy bills 'gambled on a very, very low rate' - but suggests they won't have to pay the full amount

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  • Lady Gaga’s Dog Walker Shot as Thieves Swipe Her Two French Bulldogs, Says Report

    Reuters/Saul LoebThieves have shot Lady Gaga’s dog walker and made off with two of her French bulldogs, according to a report from TMZ.The shooting took place in West Hollywood on Wednesday night. The Los Angeles Police Department confirmed to The Daily Beast that a 30-year-old victim was taken to a local hospital. His condition is unknown.According to TMZ, a third dog was with the man when the shooting began right before 10 p.m. ABC7 reported that the dog walker was seen cradling one of the dogs while he was being treated on the sidewalk for his gunshot wounds. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Lady Gaga (@ladygaga) The singer, real name Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta, has three beloved French bulldogs, Koji, Asia, and Gustav. It was reported that Asia is the dog recovered from the scene. Earlier in the day, Lady Gaga was seen in Rome, where she is filming Ridley Scott’s new movie Gucci. Lady Gaga is reportedly “extremely upset” and is offering a $500,000 reward for the safe return of her pets “no questions” asked, according to TMZ. Anyone with information is asked to email KojiandGustav@gmail.com.Her team was not immediately available for comment.Police are searching for at least one suspect, who was seen fleeing the scene in a white vehicle. They said it was too early in the investigation to know if the dogs were the target of the shooting. Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.

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  • Former Trump Aide to Run Primary Challenge against Kinzinger

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