A grand jury empaneled by the New York Attorney General's Office has begun hearing testimony regarding the conduct of the officers who were involved in the fatal arrest of Daniel Prude.

The case got national attention after activists and attorneys for Prude's family released police body camera footage that show Prude suffocating as Rochester Police officers restrained him. He was revived, hospitalized, and died a week later. The video became public in September.

The incident happened in March but the video was made public in September.
Matthew Rich, an attorney representing four of the seven officers involved in the incident, said that the state Attorney General's Office has been presenting to the grand jury since mid-October.

“The proceedings are kept secret, and the assistants over at the attorney general’s office have not really told me much about what’s going on with the grand jury,” Rich said. “None of my clients have testified, I don’t know how many witnesses have testified, and I don’t know when they are going to conclude.”
Rich said he does not know when the proceedings will end or what charges the attorney general’s office is pursuing. Rich asserts his clients’ innocence and said one of them was not on the scene at all and none of them had physical contact with Prude.

He said all of the officers, including the ones he’s not representing, are innocent.
“It's our position that no one of the seven officers involved committed any crimes. They followed their training, and this was a tragic incident, but it was not because of anything the officers did or did not do,” said Rich.

Prude’s family attorney Donald Thompson said Monday that they would not comment on the grand jury.

James Brown is a reporter for WXXI News, a media partner of CITY. He can be reached at [email protected].