Back in the day, my grandfather appeared in a local newspaper for walking around naked and telling people in his neighborhood that he was the reincarnation of Jesus Christ. He was on PCP. I heard the story from my mother initially, who'd bring it up as an example to stay away from drugs when I was a kid.

My family and I found the story comical, mainly because we knew our grandfather one way: as a healthy, wise, and loving man, who was sometimes strict like most older men tend to be. So, when we heard that he experimented with drugs as a young man, we couldn't help but laugh.

On March 23, 2020, in Rochester, New York, Daniel Prude, 41, died in police custody. Prude was said to be walking around naked and showing obvious signs that he wasn't mentally stable. Police officers were eventually called, and as they were attempting to apprehend him, Prude began spitting blood at the officers. For moments like that, Rochester police protocol is to put a paper bag called a “spit hood” over the head of the detainee. Prude subsequently ended up in the hospital, where he died a week later.

A medical examiner ruled his death a homicide caused by "complications of asphyxia in the setting of physical restraint." The report also said that excited delirium and acute intoxication by phencyclidine, or PCP, were contributing factors. After the video was released, Rochester Mayor Lovely Warren announced the suspensions of officers with pay in a news conference and apologized to the family of Daniel Prude, who she said was failed "by our police department, our mental health care system, our society. And he was failed by me."

This situation begs for certain questions to be answered. Like, how does a man end up dead in police custody? Will the officers be held accountable, not just from the people, or their former boss, but from the law? How do we avoid these situations that are happening far too often? Those are just to name a few.

Mental Health in The Criminal Justice System

Mayor Warren mentioned the country's mental health system in her apology, and for good reason. According to this New York Times article, more than half of the prisoners incarcerated in America suffer from some kind of mental illness. It also cites a federal study that says 75 percent of women who are locked up are mentally ill. “This a national crisis,” Chuck Wexler, executive director of the Police Executive Research Forum, an independent research organization devoted to improving policing said to the Washington Post. “We have to get American police to rethink how they handle encounters with the mentally ill. Training has to change.” There's often a link between substance abuse and mental illness. In cases where there is a connection, the undiagnosed person typically uses a substance as a coping mechanism.

In Prude's case, his brother tried to have Prude admitted to Strong Memorial Hospital, but they released him overnight. Later, he told the police about Prude's mental state. Still, instead of responding with mental health professionals, the officers acted as if Prude was a criminal. The officers are even heard laughing in the video, highlighting the question of whether police officers are the appropriate professionals to respond to these types of calls. In general, black people with mental health issues are more likely to be confronted with an arrest than with mental health treatment. Combine that with a criminal justice system that's built for profit rather than rehabilitation, and the result is a cycle of injustice. Or, in Prude's case, a plague of mercilessness led to his death.

The War of Experts

As Prude's family grieves, assuming there is a trial, the prosecution will be tasked with preparing the state's case. These types of cases, seemingly like the previewed defense of the officers accused of killing George Floyd, will be decided by a war of experts. The defense will hire experts who will maintain that the death was not a homicide. They will present an argument that the drugs were the deciding factor in the death. The controversial term is “excited delirium.” It's meant to describe those with extreme agitation, confusion, and apparent immunity to pain. The condition has yet to be recognized by the American Psychiatric Association, the American Medical Association, or the World Health Organization. “Excited delirium, which is not a medical diagnosis, has a long history of being used to absolve law enforcement of responsibility in the death of people, especially people of color,” Dr. Homer Venters, former chief of medicine for New York City's jails, told The Marshall Project. Despite the critiques of excited delirium, police officers are indicted in fewer than 1 percent of killings

Human Potential

Prude's story, and others like it, always makes me think of my grandfather. What if he was detained and killed that day, instead of being left with an embarrassing story? He would have never had the opportunity to rehabilitate, and become the grandfather my family cherished. We wouldn't have been able to surround him on his deathbed to say goodbye. He would have been branded a drug addict, who resisted arrest and therefore, was killed. And at that point, it might've been true. But he was also so many other things. Prude, like my grandfather, had the potential to heal, if provided with the proper resources. Now that his potential is permanently crushed, we're left at best with a trial that, in the end, brings no one back. With that being the fact, I must ask one more question.

Is this justice?