By John Friend
Recent high-profile incidents that have triggered massive protests, rioting, and looting by Black Lives Matter (BLM) and other left-wing radicals demonstrate the delusional nature of the entire narrative endlessly promulgated by the liberal establishment, black activists, and the mass media regarding law enforcement in America. This incessant brainwashing campaign proves just how dishonest and malicious the fake news media truly is.
Violent protests in Rochester, N.Y. in recent weeks were sparked following the release of police body camera footage of an encounter with Daniel Prude, a 41-year-old black man who was high on PCP and had a history of drug abuse and criminality. In late March, Prude boarded a train from Chicago to visit and stay with relatives in Rochester. On his trip to Rochester, he was kicked off the train for disruptive and erratic behavior, requiring his brother Joe to pick him up at a shelter in Buffalo.
After arriving at his brother’s residence in Rochester, Prude began acting crazed and mentally unstable. According to a local report, he began trying to hide under furniture, jumping down flights of stairs, accusing his relatives of trying to kill him, and expressing suicidal thoughts. His brother took him to a local hospital for a mental health evaluation, but hospital officials released him hours later and returned him to his brother’s house that night.
Prude eventually bolted from the house in the early morning hours with just a tank top and long underwear on, prompting his brother to call Rochester police, fearing Prude was on drugs and a danger to himself or others. Police quickly found Prude a few blocks from his brother’s house totally naked and visibly high on drugs. The recently released police body camera footage shows Prude sitting down on the street naked, his hands cuffed behind his back. He is seen shouting and screaming, praying to Jesus, and asking officers to let him up. He allegedly told officers he had Covid-19 and was spitting at them. Officers placed a “spit hood” over Prude’s head and face, a breathable mesh hood used by law enforcement to prevent detained suspects from spitting on them.
An ambulance was called and eventually took Prude to a local hospital where he died a week later. The medical examiner listed Prude’s death as a homicide caused by “complications of asphyxia in the setting of physical restraint,” and also listed excited delirium and acute intoxication by PCP as contributing factors.
Prude’s case is similar to the death of George Floyd, who defense attorneys for the charged officers insist died of a drug overdose rather than their restraining tactics. Prude and Floyd were also long-time criminals who served multiple jail sentences. Prude was arrested 37 times and convicted on nine separate occasions according to Chicago police with eight of those convictions being for drug and alcohol crimes, while one was for burglary.
According to Michael Mazzeo, the president of the Locust Club, the police union representing Rochester officers, the police officers involved in the encounter with Prude followed standard training and protocols.
“To me, it looks like they were watching the training in front of them and doing step by step what the training says to do,” Mazzeo stated. “If there’s a problem with that, let’s change it.” It would also help if people didn’t run around their cities buck naked and high on PCP.
Defense attorneys for the officers involved with the detainment and ultimate death of Floyd have also insisted their clients were following standard police procedure.
Nevertheless, left-wing radicals and BLM activists, fueled by the dishonest and manipulative reporting of the mass media, continue to delusionally insist that “systemic racism” and “white supremacy” are to blame for the deaths of black criminals who were being apprehended or questioned by law enforcement officers, rather than the criminal behavior of those who have died.
Just last weekend, Ricardo Munoz, a 27-year-old man who had previously been convicted for stabbing multiple individuals just last year, was shot and killed in Lancaster, Pa. after busting through the front door of his mother’s house with a knife, charging a police officer responding to a domestic dispute at the residence. The officer opened fire upon the knife-wielding Munoz, killing him on the spot and sparking more destructive protests in the city.
Additionally, in Los Angeles, protests erupted recently following the death of Dijon Kizzee, a young black man who was stopped by LA Sheriff’s deputies for an alleged vehicle code violation while riding his bicycle. After being stopped, Kizzee dropped a firearm in a bundle of clothes, punched a deputy, and fled, according to the LA County Sheriff’s department.
“Our suspect was holding some items of clothing in his hands, punched one of the officers in the face, and dropped the items in his hands,” Lt. Brandon Dean explained following Kizzee’s death on Aug. 31. “The deputies noticed that inside the clothing items that he dropped was a black semiautomatic handgun, at which time, a deputy-involved shooting occurred.” Kizzee made a move toward the firearm during the altercation, it is alleged, yet the delusional BLM protests continue.
John Friend is a freelance writer based in California.
