Demonstrators lock arms as they march for Daniel Prude on Friday in Rochester, N.Y. Prude died after being arrested on March 23 by Rochester police officers, who had placed a “spit hood” over his head and pinned him to the ground while restraining him.

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Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images

Demonstrators lock arms as they march for Daniel Prude on Friday in Rochester, N.Y. Prude died after being arrested on March 23 by Rochester police officers, who had placed a “spit hood” over his head and pinned him to the ground while restraining him.

Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images

The New York attorney general announced on Saturday that she is putting together a grand jury as part of her office’s investigation into the death of Daniel Prude, a Black man who died of asphyxiation after being restrained by police in March.

“The Prude family and the Rochester community have been through great pain and anguish,” New York Attorney General Letitia James said in a statement. “My office will immediately move to empanel a grand jury as part of our exhaustive investigation into this matter.”

Protests erupted in Rochester after body camera footage of Prude’s arrest was released on Wednesday. The following day, Rochester Mayor Lovely Warren ordered all seven officers involved suspended without pay.

“I believe that if Daniel Prude was white all of those systems would not have failed him,” Warren said. “It is time that we stopped trying to not acknowledge this and call it for was it is. It’s racism.”

On March 23, Prude had just been released from Rochester’s Strong Memorial Hospital after expressing suicidal thoughts. He was with brother, Joe Prude, when he left the house in below-freezing temperatures wearing just long johns and a tank top. His brother called Rochester police for help. Officers found Prude naked and in distress, allegedly smashing windows and saying he had the coronavirus, according to police reports.

The newly released body camera footage shows officers ordering Prude to lie down on the snowy road, which he did. Officers cuffed his hands behind his back, but Prude grew agitated. Officers placed a “spit hood” over his head, intended to protect others from possible infection. The footage showed officers restraining Prude by holding his feet and head down, and putting a knee on his back. Prude fell unconscious, according to police reports, and died a week later.

“Everything that they did, they didn’t have to do,” Joe Prude told NPR earlier this week. “That excessive force they used on him, the pushup stands on his neck, the knee on his back, holding his legs, that wasn’t called for. They didn’t have no dignity in what they was doing to my brother. They treated my brother like he was an animal in the street. A stray.”

The Monroe County Medical Examiner’s Office ruled the cause of death as “complications of asphyxia in the setting of physical restraint” and ruled the manner of death as “homicide.”