Just a few minutes after the Rochester, New York police put some kind of bag on Daniel Prude's head, this black man was left without strength.
A week later he passed away.
The autopsy revealed that he died of suffocation.
What the 41-year-old black man was actually wearing on his head was a
"no spitting hood"
, a mesh bag the use of which is being strongly questioned.
Image of Daniel Prude taken from police body camera video provided by Roth and Roth LLP, a Rochester police officer, on March 23, 2020, in Rochester, NY Rochester Police via Roth and Roth LLP via AP
This hood is a breathable fabric sack that can be placed over a person's head
to prevent biting or spitting.
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Amnesty International condemned its use on Thursday,
a day after Prude's family released the video from the camera of one of the policemen.
The organization said hoods are particularly
dangerous
when a person is already in danger, as Prude appeared to be.
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The hoods often "look like something out of Abu Ghraib," said The Associated Press news agency Adanté Pointer, an Oakland civil rights lawyer who has handled several cases involving the devices.
"Many times they are used in a punitive way," he added.
"They put a bag over her head and
squeezed the air out of her,
" said Nicolette Ward, an attorney for one of Prude's daughters.
"
He spent the last moments of his life breathing his own vomit
."
Park City, Utah Police Chief Wade Carpenter said the ones he's seen are made to be
breathable
and are fastened with an
elastic around the neck
that can be easily broken.
The use of these hoods is widespread among
doctors, prison guards and the police,
both in the country and internationally.
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Joe Prude said his brother was visiting Chicago and
suffering from mental illness
.
Joe Biden visits Kenosha and meets with Jacob Blake's family
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3, 202002: 05
In the video of the body camera of one of the agents, he is seen spitting in the direction of the agents and was heard to say that he
was infected with the coronavirus
.
The officers assured that this led them to use the hood.
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University of South Carolina criminal justice professor Geoffrey Alpert noted that, for decades, these have reduced the risk of officers being spat on.
It is not the first time that deaths have been reported after the use of these hoods in people with mental health problems.
In New York City, there has been pressure for police to be better trained to treat the mentally ill or to bring in experts to do so.
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Just three weeks after Prude's fatal encounter, a similar one occurred in Tucson, Arizona.
The police handcuffed and placed a hood on the head of a naked man also in danger.
Carlos Ingram López
died of lack of air and begging for water.
Details of this death were not known until weeks later.
In another similar episode, a 45-year-old man died in 2015 after Bernalillo, New Mexico police placed him in a hood, possibly incorrectly.
[Kenosha: two shootings, two opposite realities marked by racism]
The prison guards have also worn hoods, sometimes with deadly effects.
Their use varies by jurisdiction: the Minneapolis police use them, but the New York police do not.
The New York police, the nation's largest police force, said a team of police paramedics has begun testing its effectiveness in the wake of the pandemic.
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When British police began wearing hoods in recent years, civil liberties advocate Martha Spurrier called them "
primitive, cruel and degrading
".
With information from The Associated Press and The New York Times.