NEW YORK -- Daniel Prude's suffocation in Rochester, N.Y., in March has drawn new attention to police use of spit hoods, mesh bags that have been linked to other deaths, and the frequent reliance on police to respond to mental health emergencies.
Seven officers involved in the encounter were suspended with pay Thursday.
While many in law enforcement defend the hoods as vital to prevent officers from being spit on or even bitten -- a concern that has taken on new importance during the coronavirus pandemic -- critics have denounced them as dangerous and inhumane.
Amnesty International condemned the use of spit hoods Thursday, a day after Prude's family made public body camera video and police reports that it obtained from the Rochester department. The organization said the hoods are particularly dangerous when a person is already in distress, as Prude appeared to be.
Police use of spit hoods often "looks like something out of Abu Ghraib," said Adante Pointer, an Oakland, Calif., civil rights lawyer who has handled several cases involving the devices. "They're often used in a punitive way."
[Video not showing up above? Click here to view » https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_1ozGwq_PU]
Prude, in Rochester to visit his brother, was taken by police for a mental health evaluation just hours before the fatal encounter after he was said to have expressed suicidal thoughts. Prude's brother told police that he was calm when he returned to his house but later got high on PCP and ran away, prompting the brother to call 911.
Police found Prude wandering the street naked after reportedly smashing a storefront window, and he could be seen on body camera footage spitting in the direction of officers and can be heard claiming to be infected with coronavirus. Officers said that led them to employ the hood.
Prude, handcuffed by that point, can be seen continuing to spit through the mesh and saying that he wanted an officer's gun. The officers then pinned him to the ground, one of them keeping a knee on his back and another pressing his face into the pavement for about two minutes.
Minutes later, an officer can be heard saying Prude was throwing up. After realizing that Prude had stopped breathing, paramedics who had arrived at some point, began CPR.
At a news conference Thursday announcing the officers' suspensions, Rochester Mayor Lovely Warren said: "Mr. Daniel Prude was failed by the Police Department, our mental health care system, our society and he was failed by me."
In fact, Prude's death has raised questions about how authorities respond to mental health emergencies. Many other deaths at the hands of police have resulted from an encounter that began with a call about someone's mental health and then devolved.
In many departments -- New York City, for example -- there has been a push to better train police on how to manage the mentally ill or to bring in experts who do, but it remains a major issue.
Spit hoods vary in design, but Park City, Utah, Police Chief Wade Carpenter said the ones he's seen are made to be breathable and held in place with an elastic around the neck that can easily be broken.
"It wouldn't put any pressure on the carotid arteries in the neck. It wouldn't restrict blood flow to the brain and certainly wouldn't block the mouth or nose," said Carpenter, adding that officers in the ski town have used the devices for years without any issues.
University of South Carolina criminal justice professor Geoffrey Alpert said the hoods have reduced the risk of officers and bystanders getting spit on for decades.
"Take away covid, it's just a nasty thing anyway," Alpert said.
Information for the article was contributed by Jim Mustian, Colleen Long, Jill Lawless and Amy Forliti of The Associated Press.
