In the criminal justice system, most of us have seen the use of “spit hoods” when a suspect or defendant spits at officers or others. During the pandemic, such behavior is viewed as particularly dangerous. However, for years, the hoods have been associated with breathing and medical issues. The death of Daniel Prude in Rochester is spotlighting this controversy after a shocking video of a group of officers laughing as Prude, who was running nude in the area, complained about his breathing. He died on March 30 after being taken off life support.
Prude, who is black, is seen in a videotape sitting naked on the street as officers laugh at the scene on March 30th. One officer is shown pressing Prude’s face into the asphalt. While at points compliant, Prude is also shown shouting and at one point asking for an officer’s gun. He is obviously mentally unstable. He asks for the hood to be removed at one point but officers respond by telling him to “calm down” and “stop spitting.” Prude sounds increasingly in distress and says that the officers are trying to kill him.
Here is another video angle:
A medical examiner concluded that Prude’s death was a homicide caused by “complications of asphyxia in the setting of physical restraint.”
As with the death of George Floyd, the officers’ lawyers are likely to point to a finding that lists excited delirium and acute intoxication by phencyclidine, or PCP, as listed contributing factors.
However, as I previously noted with the George Floyd case, officers have to anticipate such complications from drug use in conducting arrests and must respond to clear medical emergencies.
In addition to the police abuse allegations in the Prude case, there needs to be greater attention to the use of these hoods and the impact on the breathing of suspects. A spitting suspect is the most likely to have drugs in their systems that might affect breathing. It is not simply the material used in the hoods but the protocols used by police that have to be addressed after this terrible case.
I think I would find almost any other work, even operating a cesspool pumper truck, before becoming a police officer in this country. You risk your life daily, you get a few articles in papers if you die in the line of duty, your name on a wall or monument for valor and a few days later everyone has moved on. Had the officer killed the offender, they could spend years defending themselves and the news will cover for months.
Until good cops come forward and call out the wrongful actions from other cops, this will go on and on. And to the hate that is on this blog, think what you would do if Black cops were killing White people at the same rate for year after year, and nothing seems to change, what would you do? How would you act? Would you accept to be treated as criminals at first sight? How would you feel to have friends, neighbors and relatives be mistreated and killed and see no justice.
Fish– When black cops kill white people, white people don’t burn down the neighborhood and loot Macy’s.
“if Black cops were killing White people at the same rate for year after year”
What do you mean by “if”? Black cops do kill white people and black people, every year.
In fact, more white people are killed by cops every year than black people.
As always, you are clueless.
This has been covered before. Police kill far more blacks than whites when you consider their relative representation in proportion to the population as a whole. Trump lies every time he claims police kill more whites than blacks. That’s not true.
“However, for years, the hoods have been associated with breathing and medical issues.”
How are these things different from the masks we all have to wear?
I recommend that all law enforcement officers consider just taking a day off…all on the same day. If the VP nominee can threaten the anarchy won’t stop and shouldn’t stop; if Gov. Cuomo can threaten the President and tell him he wouldn’t be safe walking the NYC streets, then just announce a national day of rest for law enforcement. Make it Labor Day.
You get yourself hyped up on drugs and go out into the street naked, I’d say you bought a ticket on the one-way express outta here. The cops do what they can but he’s a crazy and the cops aren’t psych counselors. The cops are just along for the ride on your suicide.
Prude, who is black…
Thanks Al Sharpton, but that is irrelevant.
Okay Jon, what, exactly, are officers supposed to do in such situations? They are not medical personnel and don’t carry around the medications to treat such issues. Their only option is to restrain the person until medical personnel can arrive, as was the case with George Floyd and in this instance.
JMRJ–I have never handled anyone on PCP but I have handled drunks. You may be well aware of this, but there is a phenomenon with some drunks where they “break bad.” When this happens, and it can be out of the blue, the drunk has seemingly super human strength many times requiring multiple officers to restrain him (I’ve never seen a her do this). To guard against injury, it is not uncommon to hold the person down with force until such time as the danger has passed. I am told that PCP is like a drunk on steroids. Here, the situation was made even more difficult by him being a spitter, especially one claiming to have Covid-19. The hoods are used frequently to protect those who must be around spitters, on the street, in jail or even in court. As to why EMTs were not called, EMTs are trained not to approach a person if that person is out of control. LIke firefighters, they are trained to wait for backup if there is a threat of violence. With the way he was acting out, I suspect the EMTs would have waited for police backup. In fact, I would be shocked if they did not. I also was not surprised by the morgue humor. It is common and sometimes I think it is the only way to get some distance between the officer and what he or she sees and must deal with.
Honest– I remember your explaining this before and I was impressed with your clarity and the voice of actual experience that I have not had. The best I could do is try to imagine myself in these situations. It is seldom I think I would have acted differently. The gallows humor is part of our mechanism for distancing and I have heard doctors use it in informal settings many times. I imagine anyone truly having to take responsibility in some of these instances has to resort to it. But I suppose that in a society where people are triggered by a statement that “all lives matter” gallows humor probably completely upends them. And that would encourage me to use it all the more.
Our local ABC affiliate here in Rochester showed a video clip. The Mayor of Rochester said that she had not seen the video until August 4. Why? Apparently there is an investigation by the NYS AG underway. There are many unanswered questions at this time.
“There are many unanswered questions at this time.”
I agree. Seems rather convenient that this wasn’t public in April. This happened 5 months ago. Why wait til now?
Perhaps I’m too cynical, but it smacks of keeping emotions high and stoking smoldering fires. Portland hasn’t completely burned down yet. People were busy freaking out about coronavirus numbers back in early April.
Leftists: What would you have the officers do: Cuff him and let him spit, which in itself can be considered assault? Ask for his home address and make an appointment to arrest him once he’s sober?? Give him a verbal reprimand and a Strongly Worded Letter(tm) stating that he’s been very naughty and shouldn’t act like that??? Ask him to go home, get dressed and come down to the jail voluntarily (would you rather he walk or drive)????
The officers’ demeanor may or may not be appropriate, but what options did they have once they began to effect an arrest? Yeah, sure: defunding would’ve prevented this altogether, but it would not have prevented Mr. Prude from running around the neighborhood naked and high. Would you *really* prefer to implement a you-make-your-own justice system? I don’t think they would’ve liked the outcome much better if a regular citizen decided to end the menace Mr. Prude presented on their own, in the absence of a police force.
kydave, I would them do something else.
What would you have them do?
Not my job, but I’d start with not killing people.
Cop out.
Exactly
“I’d start with not killing people” – BTB
Have you communicated that to your allegedly non-existent members of Antifa, who go out of their way trying to kill people?
Rhodes, I think you have me confused with one of your imaginary friends.
BTB– Not my job, but I’d start with not killing people.”
****
When you offer that you would do things differently it suggests you have something in mind. Evidently not. Saying you would not kill people is a misdirection. These cops were not trying to kill anyone either.
Terms you will understand: This naked lunatic is running around in the woods on your property and is completely out of control. You call the cops but they aren’t coming because you helped defund them. Next you get your gun and start killing people.
Great solution.
Young — When you say “…suggests you have something in mind,” you seem to forget you’re speaking to By the Book. Are you suggesting Book has a mind??
As a wise man once said: C’mon, man!
Young, I think you also have me confused with one of your imaginary friends.
Here is possibly the best idea behind the hodgepodge of questionable ones called “police reform”:
there is a need for more training to recognize and deal with mental illness episodes
there is also a need to divert some of these calls to ambulances, and to train medics in assessment of maniacal episodes that call for teamwork with police to subdue violent mental health suspects and if necessary adminster tranqs or at least “straightjackets.”
Remember straight-ackets? We need to seriously reconsider redeploying the “men in white coats” of yesteryear to help avoid sad outcomes like this one. really sad
I had a client whose son was involuntarily committed after threatening murder. finally got him diagnosed with paranoid schiz. he got meds and treatment and let him out after a month and he pretty well took care of himself peacefully after that. I have a hundred stories like this. it’s not an easy problem for anybody.
https://www.nami.org/Home
Book — Fine with me. Once the police are disbanded, you make your own justice system and I’ll make mine. After all, without law enforcement there’ll be no courts or jails so I won’t be accountable to society for my actions. Neither will you, and neither will Mr. Prude. It does seem telling that the same side of the political spectrum wants a disarmed society also wants to convert it to might-makes-right–as long as they control the might.
don’t let this one get diverted into the political mess that is BLM.
This is a mental health episode and a tragedy of poorly directed social health care resources mishandled by a medical establishment that always shortchanges “in-patient care”
https://www.nami.org/Home
kyjelly, who in this discussion wants the police disbanded? Do you share the same imaginary friends that Rhodes and Young talk with?
Never Read a Book — I’ll discuss any imaginary friends I may or may not have as soon as you tell us when you stopped beating your wife.
Kydave– Okay, that was off the rails. Do you think any sane woman could live with Book and retain her sanity?
What (feigning “who, me?” surprise)?!? You were the one suggesting up-thread that Book has a mind. Your questions contains its own answer: anyone (of whatever genitalia) who could live with Book could not possibly be accused of being sane to begin with.
BTB,
I read this post of yours & I was magically transported back to when I was in an 11th grade locker room:
With an Ahole as big as you are are is it possible you can hold your stool?
AKA: You Bore the hell out of me.
Oops a typo correction, it’s Friday, talk like a pirate day… R R R:
BTB,
I read this post of yours & I was magically transported back to when I was in an 11th grade locker room:
With an Ahole as big as you are are are how is it possible you can hold your stool?
AKA: You Bore the hell out of me.
Much better, maybe tomorrow well be better for you.
I was against going to Kenosha before I was for going to Kenosha.
Lead guitarist Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead explains what it’s like when tasting the frosting of a birthday cake dosed with 800 hits of LSD.
This incident occurred in March and was not national headline news at the time. It is national headline news six months later. Why? I watched and read as many articles as I could, and could not find anything known now that was not known then, other than that “a video was recently released.” Why was the video released now, and not six months ago. Answer: because black man being killed by cops was not politically popular six months ago, and it is highly politically popular now.
Drug head dies days after the spit hood. Nuff said. Good he’s dead.
lots of mental health patients need in patient care. asylums are now a dirty word. and yet they served an important role in orderly and just society.
we need to take a hard look at increasing dramatically the amount of in-patient care available for involuntary committment subjects to get the structured custodial care they need
of course we aren’t even taking very good care of the elderly who need it so nobody cares too much about this one
blm just wants to weaponize a medical resource allocation issue in this instance. despicable
https://www.nami.org/Home
A medical examiner concluded that Prude’s death was a homicide caused by “complications of asphyxia in the setting of physical restraint.”
I wouldn’t mind betting a couple hundred dollars that that finding won’t stand up in court. Start with the officers remarking the liquid coming out of his mouth.
Absurd– I suspected the same about the ‘homicide’ finding. It would not come as a surprise if that conclusion was not actually supported by the examination.
Kydave above zeros in on the essential point: are the police to restrain someone like this or are they to walk away and leave your neighborhood infested with loons like this under every other bush? California has chosen the latter option and the results are disgusting and scary.
I think it’s pretty clear that regardless of what the law says, cops are going to start letting them walk.
And I can’t blame them a bit. We are telling them “don’t do this” by prosecuting cops for legitimate actions that turn out badly. They are our employees so if we’re telling them “don’t do this” what grounds to complain do we have when the stop doing it?
Ever.
Good luck living in your city when the cops decline to arrest anyone who resists.
Young, they didn’t restrain him, they killed him.. We probably agree that kill could be called a subset behavior of restrain , but not what we are after. God forbid the Kenosha police didn’t “restrained” Kyle Rittenhouse in this manner or heads would be exploding here.
If he had Covid-19, the ME would’ve faced a different set of problems. Make a case against the cops, or pile on the pandemic stats.
The professor’s knee jerk response to every human problem is for people who have real work to do to be subject to the second-guessing of lawyers.
Folks, here is a good resource to learn about how to handle a mental health crisis in a way that will be helpful and hopefully not lead to tragedy
https://www.nami.org/Learn-More/Treatment/Getting-Treatment-During-a-Crisis
it’s very complicated but more in patient berths, and a more aggressive approach to detaining people who are in crisis, would help a lot
today, the understanding of “is a person an imminent threat to themselves or others” has become an excuse for social workers to cut everybody who needs help loose.
many people who can’t get the in patient care just go off and kill themselves or overdose. seen this many times out here in the world
some people ask me why would social workers do this? well for starters, they are trained that the old asylum system was so awful and such a persecution. so they have a tendency to under-appreciate the gravity of a mental health crisis in the making
secondly they are pressured by their employers to cut people loose because there simply are not enough beds.
answer is to get more aggressive about involuntary commitment, and to finance an increase in bed space to service the increased demand that will result.
this is going to be public financing but a lot of these people can be or already are one medicaid anyhow.
and the money is well worth it. untreated and running wild, they create a disproportionate amount of crime, suffering, and chaos. the homeless drug abuser population is an example.
Daniel was doped up on a bad batch of PCP. The “spit hood” didn’t cause him to die 7 days later. But the bad PCP dope would do it.
bad batch? I think most of it comes from vet supply. the problem is that it’s not fit for human use, and secondly, the dosing is uncertain. espeically if they are sprinking it on low quality weed which is an old ghetto trick “or so i have been told”
I know it will annoy the usual suspects, but PCP is more popular among urban black populations than white drug abusers. “or so I have been told”
it is a sedative even though it may make people act crazy, causes heart and breathing difficulties.
https://drugabuse.com/pcp/history-statistics/
Usually when one is talking he can breathe but I wonder if in this instance he was getting carbon dioxide buildup in the hood. That would allow inhalation and exhalation and speech but would also deprive him of sufficient oxygen. I am not sure that would be the fault of the policemen if they were using an approved hood.
One problem which was foreseeable is that so many bogus claims of ” I can’t breathe” have been made, and played up by a seditious media, that when it is actually true it is not likely to be believed. In that respect it is a bit like the incessant accusations of racism. I tend to dismiss all of them now and am likely to ignore a real instance should it come along.
So let me get this straight Young. You say you’ve seen too many instances of guys saying they can’t breathe and then dying ( 3 of them now counting the Staten Island case) and therefore you know BS when you see it.
Say what?
BTB– No, you didn’t get it straight.
( 3 of them now counting the Staten Island case)
In the Staten Island case, the man was subject to an ordinary police tackle and had the officers baton across his neck for all of nine seconds. The officer is not responsible for his hideous medical problems which, at the age of 44, included morbid obesity and diabetes.
The spitting hood probably has a place in the police arsenal, but the attitude of the cops in this incident ranges from callous to depraved.
I don’t want a person with that attitude carrying a gun around me.
There is nothing wrong with the attitude of the police officers, except in your imagination.
XXii
BS
Watch the videos.
If that is your idea of appropriate police attitudes, you lack basic decency.
Love your tough guy attitude when describing others; you would pee in your pants if you experienced that treatment.
“If that is your idea of appropriate police attitudes, you lack basic decency.”
***********************
Let’s put your compassionate BS together with a spitting (in the days of Covid), hopped up on PCP crazy who is struggling with all his might and see how you’d do. Decency goes both ways –even in wacked out Leftist Colorado.
They’re professional with him. One officer can be heard chuckling over something. If you think mordant humor is ‘indecent’, you should stay away from normal human beings.
By the way, the term ‘tough guy attitude’ does not mean what you fancy it means.
Absurd– I agree. I doubt my attitude would be any different–and likely would be harsher–were I to deal with this on a regular basis.
callous is how any human being ends up when they deal with death and dying every day. it’s called “gallows humor” and it is a normal aspect of working in ERs, cop shops, hospice, funeral homes, and certain areas of law
but “callous” is also what they call one of the best writers on death and dying out there, Stephen Jenkinson
https://www.amazon.com/Die-Wise-Manifesto-Sanity-Soul/dp/1583949739
“normal” people who have little or no contact with the dead or dying, often are not sensitive, they are just ostriches. members of a society that shunts it all off where it can’t be seen nor experienced by those who are “healthy”
we all die. dying is part of life. the very first day, you start your process of dying. only a fool thinks they will live forever, and yet that’s how most people live every day
Well, I’m in Rochester and it seems to me that while there are surface similarities to other incidents of black men being killed by police, this one is a lot more nuanced. The imagery is terrible, of course. But it’s kind of hard for me to see criminal liability for the police here. There appears to be a major problem with training and procedure. First, a mental hygiene call should involve EMT’s from the get-go, not half an hour later. Second, obviously these “holds” that cops are using to subdue suspects are a big problem. I have no idea why a cop has to press the head and face of a handcuffed individual into the pavement with all his weight and all his might.
JMJR:
” I have no idea why a cop has to press the head and face of a handcuffed individual into the pavement with all his weight and all his might.”
**************************
As a former football player, the answer is to stop ’em from getting up. Humans are strong and can escape holds very easily. It’s why football players practice tacking every day. Add crazy and PCP to that talent and you’ve got a person who can take a superhuman amount of pain.
“As a former football player…”
https://www.lawyers.com/richmond/virginia/mark-mario-esposito-1750214-a/
Get thee to the gym, buddy.
Its easy to look at an overweight mature lawyer and say go to the gym. most of us say, “if I had the time I would go more.”
I used to go twice as much as I do now. I should take this advice too
the problem is a) we have gobs of stress b) people are calling us all the time about serious things and they need help and c) often we cheat ourselves from time necessary to exercise so that we can just work more, in order to help more people and yes try and make more money. other people are depending on us including our families.
most lawyers work 50-60 hours a week. I don’t know any who work less than that unless they are working for the government., even a lot of government lawyers will work long hours too
I suppose I could make back 10 hours a week by not typing here, but I consider it part of my “independent study” and “continuing education”
There are plenty of ways to remain fit, strong, and healthy — without actually going to a gym, though I quipped, “Get thee to a gym.” Many people — even “mature” lawyers — manage it. It helps people deal with stress and increases efficiency, among other things. There are even “steppers” that can be used at one’s desk. But it takes discipline.
Truth be told, it’s the hypocrisy (mostly) that’s hard to stomach — no pun intended…
“Fat land: how Americans became the fattest people in the world”
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC300778/
Anonymous:
You have weird fascination with me. But hey to each his own, snookems.
Naah, mespo. Guys like you are a dime a dozen.