A gust of bitter wind met a crowd of four dozen strangers in a vacant lot on Murray Street just after the new year. The crowd huddled closer, all gathered here with a common purpose: To mourn a man they didn’t know, killed by Rochester police.
“I know it’s cold,” someone said over a speaker. “We’ll get started in a minute.”
Those who showed up on this blustery night had been through this before. They came prepared with bouquets of flowers and electric tea light candles. They held still for a somber moment of reflection and shook their heads in collective contempt at familiar descriptions of fatal encounters with police.
They had done this for Daniel Prude , whose death by Rochester police in March 2020 rattled the city’s core. The medical examiner ruled Prude’s death to be a homicide. The state Attorney General’s Office later cleared the Rochester police officers who restrained Prude of criminal wrongdoing.
This crowd that showed up to mourn has done this many times since Daniel Prude died. In the four years since, cops in the Greater Rochester area have killed 13 people.