A newly obtained document sheds light on how the disavowed diagnosis infiltrated the RPD before Prude’s death.
A newly obtained document sheds light on how the disavowed diagnosis infiltrated the RPD before Prude’s death. ·  View in browser
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A training document obtained through a public records request sheds new light on how the disavowed diagnosis infiltrated the Rochester Police Department before Prude’s death. Photos: Jason Lawrence via Evilarry via Wikimedia Commons | Illustration: Leor Stylar
A newly obtained document sheds light on how the disavowed diagnosis infiltrated the Rochester Police Department before Prude’s death.
By Chris Gelardi

What killed Daniel Prude? The 41-year-old died in March 2020 after cops pinned him down during a drug-induced mental health crisis. For three minutes, Rochester police officers pressed Prude’s head and torso into the street, continuing their hold for nearly a minute after he began vomiting. It was one of the highest-profile deaths in police custody in a year that saw a historic nationwide movement against police brutality.

According to a state investigation, an autopsy, and the cops who held him to the ground, Prude was killed by something called “excited delirium.” The condition is said to turn people into erratic aggressors and can supposedly lead to cardiac arrest.

Authorities cited excited delirium in other notorious Black Lives Matter-era deaths in police custody, including those of George Floyd, Elijah McClain, and Angelo Quinto. The purported diagnosis had become so popular among first responders that, in Rochester, paramedics speculated even before they saw him that Prude was likely experiencing the condition, according to the state investigation.

Yet in the last four years, a vast swath of the U.S. medical establishment has rejected excited delirium as a diagnosis. Six leading national medical associations have fully disavowed it, while another two have distanced themselves from it. Floyd’s home state of Minnesota, McClain’s Colorado, and Quinto’s California have barred public officials from citing the syndrome.

Medical experts say excited delirium is a theory, not a recognized disease with a specific physiological cause. And they have argued it can obscure the actual causes of deaths, especially when police are involved.

Now, a training document obtained through a public records request by New York Focus and The Intercept sheds new light on how the disavowed diagnosis infiltrated the Rochester Police Department before Prude’s death.

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