Former Rochester Police Chief La’Ron Singletary says he spoke twice with Mayor Lovely Warren on the day after Daniel Prude was restrained by Rochester Police Officers, which was March 23rd.
Singletary was deposed today by lawyer Andrew Celli, hired by the city to conduct an independent investigation into the death of Daniel Prude. Prude died in the hospital a week after losing consciousness while being restrained by police officers on Jefferson Avenue.
The former chief said he spoke to Mayor Warren first at about 8:30 a.m. the morning after the incident and gave her a preliminary summary of what had happened. The chief had not yet seen the body worn camera footage of the incident, and was going on a verbal report from Deputy Chief Joe Morabito. At 1:30 p.m., he had a regularly scheduled briefing session with the mayor in which they spent 45 minutes discussing the incident. In that call, the chief had two emails from Morabito and from the lieutenant in command at the time describing what had happened.
Singletary says he told the mayor officers had “stabilized” Prude, that is, held him to the ground so that he couldn’t move. He says he told the mayor Prude was high on PCP and speaking irrationally. He says in that second call, he told the mayor there would be a departmental professional standards investigation of the incident.