Rochester Police Chief Resigns After Accusations of Cover-Up in Prude Case

The police chief of Rochester, N.Y., and several of his department’s highest ranking officials resigned on Tuesday in the aftermath of the death of Daniel Prude, a Black man who suffocated after he had been placed in a hood by city police officers and pinned to the ground.

The resignations of the police chief, La’Ron D. Singletary, the deputy chief, Joseph Morabito, and, according to Mayor Lovely Warren, others in the department, came three days after the state attorney general, Letitia James, announced that she would impanel a grand jury to consider evidence in Mr. Prude’s death.

“As a man of integrity, I will not sit idly by while outside entities attempt to destroy my character,” the police chief said in a statement. He later added: “The mischaracterization and the politicization of the actions that I took after being informed of Mr. Prude’s death is not based on facts, and is not what I stand for.”

Officials in Rochester had not publicly disclosed the death of Mr. Prude, 41, until a public records request by his family revealed officers’ body camera footage showing his struggle, naked and hooded, to the public for the first time. Mr. Prude’s family in recent days has accused officials of covering up his death to protect the police officers involved.

Mr. Singletary denied any wrongdoing on the part of the officers, even as seven were suspended last week. As recently as Sunday, he vowed to work to improve community relations in the department “to prevent this from ever happening again.”