Rochester Police Chief La’Ron Singletary has announced that he’s retiring, less than a week after the public learned about the death of Daniel Prude following an encounter with Rochester police officers.
Prude died after being left brain dead by the encounter, when he stopped breathing while being held to the pavement back in March. Chief Singletary and Mayor Lovely Warren took heavy criticism from the community and City Council for not immediately releasing details of what happened. Mayor Warren slammed the chief at a news conference for telling her that Prude died of a drug overdose, although she later said she supported his staying on as chief.
Singletary and the Mayor said the delay in making the case known came from the State Attorney General’s office, which is running an independent investigation of the Prude case per Governor Cuomo’s executive order.
Members of the groups demonstrating nightly in downtown Rochester have been calling on both the chief and the mayor to resign.