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Former Rochester police chief, La’Ron Singletary, was fired for his connections with the death of Daniel Prude divulged that the city’s mayor urged him to lie about the handling of the investigation, according to Fox News.
La’Ron Singletary was fired from the Rochester Police Department in September.
Singletary intends to sue Mayor Lovely Warren and the city for defamation of character, the creation of a hostile work environment and his “wrongful and retaliatory termination.”
Singletary alleged Warren and other city officials “impugned my performance as Chief of Police of the City of Rochester by making false statements and material omissions about my performance and discharge of duties in the matter of the treatment of Daniel Prude in the custody of the Rochester Police, his subsequent death, the internal investigations conducted by the Rochester Police Department and my communication with Mayor Warren and other city officials.”
“I repeatedly refused to lie for Mayor Warren.”
Allegedly, Warren urged him to omit facts and give false information to back her claim.
“[T]he Mayor wanted me to portray a story that just was not true and asking (sic) that I omit certain relevant facts when I testified before the City Council investigation of the Daniel Prude matter.”
Court papers state, “The Mayor further asked me to omit the specifies of our conversation when I discussed the details of the Medical Examiner’s report and instead testify that the Medical Examiner’s report was mentioned only in passing and to further testify that, in hindsight, I should not have told the Mayor ‘in passing by the elevator.”
“The Mayor then asked me to recite what I would say in my testimony … I had text messages and emails indicating there have been conversations and communications with the Mayor and her administration. I repeated that my integrity means too much to me and that I would never lie for anyone.”
Warren stated that Singletary told her that Prude’s death was a drug overdose.
Singletary wrote in his notice of claim Prude was “likely high on PCP,” later updating that the medical examiner ruled Prude’s death was a homicide.
Bridgette Burch White said Rochester will “fully defend taxpayers against this frivolous suit.”
Singletary’s version of events confirms Warren’s claim that the former chief never showed her body camera footage from the officers involved in Prude’s arrest.
Prude, 41, died one week after his encounter with police on March 23.
Prude was kicked off his train for “his unruly behavior.”
Prude was handcuffed by police around 3:20 a.m.
Joe Prude said, “At around 3 a.m. Daniel was acting very strange again – he ran out my back door wearing only a tank top and some long johns.”
“I called the police again so they could find him and take him back to the hospital.”
Prude was located after he allegedly “threw a cinder block through the store window before being spotted by a tow truck driver.”
The tow truck driver described Prude as being naked, covered in blood, and said he had told the driver he had the coronavirus.
Footage shows that Prude was naked and sitting in the street wearing a mesh covering, known as a spit hood, over his head.
An officer can be seen kneeling on Prude’s back while another pushed his face to the pavement. Allegedly, they held Prude down for two minutes, until they realized he didn’t have a pulse and began CPR.
Prude was taken off of life support on March 30.
A medical examiner concluded that Prude’s death was a homicide caused by “complications of asphyxia in the setting of physical restraint.”
From Fox News:
Singletary’s notice of claim, sent to the city on Dec. 3, was included Tuesday as an exhibit in the city council’s court petition seeking to enforce a subpoena for him to testify and provide documents for its investigation into Prude’s death.
Singletary didn’t specify the monetary damages he’s seeking from the city, but he noted that his Sept. 14 firing cost him the lifetime health benefits he would have received had he been allowed to retire on Sept. 29 as originally planned.