Daniel Prude

Daniel Prude, 41, a father of five visiting Rochester, New York from Chicago, died on March 30, 2020, a week after Rochester police officers restrained him naked on a snow-covered street during a mental health crisis. Body-camera video, not made public until September 2020, showed officers placing a mesh “spit hood” over his head and pressing his face into the pavement for roughly two minutes until he stopped breathing. The Monroe County medical examiner ruled his death a homicide from “complications of asphyxia in the setting of physical restraint.” New York Attorney General Letitia James's office presented the case to a grand jury, which voted 15–5 in February 2021 not to indict any of the three officers involved. No one has ever been charged in Prude's death.

Rochester, NY · Monroe County County

• 2020: Case opens — victim reported missing or found.
• Documented milestones (renewed investigation, media coverage, family advocacy) to be added as sourced.
• Present: case remains unresolved. No named suspect has been convicted.

• The restraint, the spit hood, and Prude's death a week later, per body-camera video released by the family's attorneys in September 2020 and the Monroe County Medical Examiner's autopsy report.
• The medical examiner ruled the death a homicide, citing asphyxia from physical restraint, with PCP listed as a contributing factor.
• New York Attorney General Letitia James's office, required by state law to investigate police-involved deaths of unarmed civilians, presented a criminally negligent homicide charge to a grand jury.
• The grand jury voted 15–5 not to indict any of the three officers, according to grand jury transcripts later released; five jurors indicated they would have voted to indict at least one officer.
• Rochester's police chief was fired and seven officers were suspended in the aftermath of the video's public release, before the grand jury's decision.
• The City of Rochester agreed to a $12 million settlement with Prude's estate for his five children in 2020.

• Whether the specific restraint technique used — which a 2015 department training bulletin itself warned could cause fatal positional asphyxia — was applied in a manner consistent with that training was presented to the grand jury but not resolved by any indictment.
• The full grand jury proceedings remain sealed by law beyond the vote count and portions of transcripts later released; the specific legal theory prosecutors argued for and against indictment on each officer individually is not fully public.
• Internal emails later showed Rochester police commanders urged withholding the video's public release, citing fears of unrest; the full extent of who in city government was aware of this recommendation, and when, has not been comprehensively detailed.

• New York Attorney General — official statement on the grand jury decision
• CNN — “Grand jury votes not to indict police officers in Rochester death of Daniel Prude”
• CBS News — “Daniel Prude's estate settles with city of Rochester for $12 million”
• Project Cold Case
• Murder Accountability Project
• NamUs