Daniel Prude’s death, in Rochester, New York, in March happened just as the coronavirus was raging out of control in the city and received no public attention at the time.
Mr Prude, 41, who was known to his big Chicago-based family as “Rell”, died on March 30 after he was taken off life support, seven days after the encounter with police in Rochester. Mr Prude, who was black, was from Chicago.
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.
On Wednesday, Mr Prude’s family held a news conference and released police body camera video obtained through a public records request that captured his fatal interaction with the officers.
Mr Prude had been taken to a Rochester hospital for a mental health evaluation about eight hours before the encounter that led to his death. He was released back into the care of his family and then abruptly ran into the street and took off his clothes.
Mr Prude had been traumatised by the deaths of his mother and a brother in recent years, having lost another brother before that, his aunt Letoria Moore said in an interview. In his final months, he had been going back and forth between his Chicago home and his brother’s place in Rochester because he wanted to be close to him, she said.
She knew her nephew had some psychological issues, she said. Still, when he called two days before his death, “he was the normal Rell that I knew,” Ms Moore said.
“I didn’t know what was the situation, why he was going through what he was going through that night, but I know he didn’t deserve to be killed by the police,” she said.
When officers found Mr Prude, they handcuffed him, put a hood over his head because he had been spitting, and then pressed his face into the pavement for two minutes, police video shows.
The hoods are intended to protect officers from a detainee’s saliva and have been scrutinised as a factor in the deaths of several prisoners in recent years.
The videos show Mr Prude, his voice muffled by the hood, begging the white officer pushing his head down to let him go. As the officer, Mark Vaughn, says, “Calm down” and “Stop spitting,” Mr Prude’s shouts became anguished whimpers and grunts.
“OK, stop. I need it. I need it,” he says.
The officer lets Mr Prude go after about two minutes when he stops moving and falls silent. Officers then notice water coming out of Mr Prude’s mouth and call over waiting medics, who start CPR.
A medical examiner concluded that Mr Prude’s death was a homicide caused by “complications of asphyxia in the setting of physical restraint”. The report lists excited delirium and acute intoxication by phencyclidine, or PCP, as contributing factors.
New York attorney general Letitia James’s office took over the investigation of the death in April. It is ongoing.
Protesters demonstrated on Wednesday at the police headquarters building in Rochester and at the spot where Mr Prude died.
Activists are demanding that the officers involved be prosecuted on murder charges.
