“I totally agree,” Singletary replied, according to the emails. Simmons suggested that the city deny the request because the case was still under investigation by the state attorney general’s office. Simmons forwarded both emails to Singletary with his message advising the chief to have the Prude family lawyer’s public records request squashed, according to the documents released Monday. Frank Umbrino told another police official “any release of information should be in conjunction with and coordinated with the Mayor and the Chief as it very well have some intense ramifications.” Mike Perkowski told a city lawyer on June 4 that he was “very concerned about releasing this prematurely in light of what is going on” and Capt. Simmons’ email seeking to have the city deny the Freedom of Information Law request echoed emails from other police officials worried about releasing video of the March 23 encounter as demonstrators were taking to the streets of Rochester and elsewhere to protest Floyd’s May 25 death in Minneapolis and other police killings of Black people. Simmons was named interim chief of the police department. The Western New York city released the emails, police reports and other documents on Monday as Mayor Lovely Warren fired Singletary and suspended Corporation Counsel Tim Curtin and Communications Director Justin Roj without pay for 30 days amid continuing fallout from Prude’s death. “That would simply be a false narrative, and could create animosity and potentially violent blow back in this community as a result.” ![]() “We certainly do not want people to misinterpret the officers’ actions and conflate this incident with any recent killings of unarmed black men by law enforcement nationally,” Simmons wrote. He was taken off life support a week later. ![]() The officers held him down for about two minutes until he stopped breathing. 4, shows Prude handcuffed and naked with a spit hood over his head as an officer pushes his face against the ground, while another officer presses a knee to his back. ![]() The video, finally made public by Prude’s family on Sept. Rochester police commanders urged city officials to hold off on publicly releasing body camera footage of Daniel Prude’s suffocation death because they feared violent blowback if the video came out during nationwide protests over the police killing of George Floyd, newly released emails show.ĭeputy Chief Mark Simmons cited the “current climate” in the city and the nation in a June 4 email advising then-Chief La’ron Singletary to press the city’s lawyers to deny a Prude family lawyer’s public records request for the footage of the March 23 encounter that led to his death. This undated photo, provided by Roth and Roth LLP, shows Daniel Prude.
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