Far-left Black Lives Matter activists stormed Rochester, New York, on Friday night, trashing businesses, harassing customers, lighting fires and setting off fireworks.
Videos of the chaos in Rochester have been posted online. President Donald Trump retweeted one of the videos to which someone had commented, “‘Thank you’ – Trump campaign ad team.”
WATCH:
https://twitter.com/ScooterCasterNY/status/1302060108898357257
Black Lives Matter rioters try to break into apartment buildings. https://t.co/xcEb6fns9F
— Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) September 5, 2020
BLM rioters in Rochester, N.Y. set a bus stop on fire earlier tonight. #BlackLivesMatter pic.twitter.com/cvKO8L3SBj
— Andy Ngô 🏳️🌈 (@MrAndyNgo) September 5, 2020
“If you ain’t police don’t record crimes,” one far-left Black Lives Matter activist said. “Do not record them!”
WATCH:
https://twitter.com/selfdeclaredref/status/1302090425474453504
Black Lives Matter rioters in Rochester are now launching fireworks attacks on police. https://t.co/cY7XSLz2C7
— Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) September 5, 2020
Another video showed one of the fringe activists saying that their efforts needed to be directed “toward the white folks.”
WATCH:
https://twitter.com/selfdeclaredref/status/1302090049593503745
Other videos showed law enforcement officials beginning to take control of the scene by pushing the far-left rioters out of the area using crowd dispersal techniques.
https://twitter.com/selfdeclaredref/status/1302093802040111106
https://twitter.com/selfdeclaredref/status/1302079663133667331
https://twitter.com/selfdeclaredref/status/1302093802040111106
The latest round of far-left violence broke out in response to a black man who died after he was taken into police custody months ago. The Daily Wire reported:
Back in March, at the height of the coronavirus pandemic, Daniel Prude, a black male, interacted with officers from the Rochester Police Department (RPD) in New York after at least two people called 911 about Prude’s behavior and welfare, included Prude’s own brother, Joe Prude.
Police reports indicate Prude was restrained by officers while waiting for the ambulance the cops summoned — video (below) suggests this was done soon after Prude told officers, “Give me your gun, I need it.”
As noted by Forbes, Prude “had been taken to the local hospital for suicidal thoughts about eight hours before his encounter with police on March 22.”
As cops were physically restraining the man for about two minutes, body camera footage (which can be viewed below) and media reports suggest the 41-year-old threw up and loss consciousness. He was reportedly resuscitated on the way to the hospital but likely suffered severe brain damage and was pulled from life support about a week later by his family.
Notably, Prude has a mesh-like hood placed over his head, dubbed a “spit hood.” The device is used to protect officers from saliva. Prude was repeatedly spitting and reportedly telling people he had COVID. (The interaction with police was in March, at the height of the novel coronavirus pandemic.)
An autopsy report from the Monroe County Medical Examiner’s Office, according to WXXI News, “listed the cause of Prude’s death as ‘complications of asphyxia in the setting of physical restraint due to excited delirium due to acute phencyclidine intoxication,’ an indication that Prude might have been high on PCP.”
One man upset about the incident suggested to a reporter on camera Thursday that racially-charged violence would be the response if “justice” does not come.
“Black lives do matter, okay? We want to see those officers arrested, and if we don’t—we tired. We are tired. We tired of it, man,” the man said. “They act like black people—we want justice all over the world, we want equal pay, we want equal rights, when you go to court, we wanna be treated equal.”
“It’s unequal all the way across the board,” he said. “We tired of it. Black lives do matter, okay? We tired of these police killing people.”
“We gonna put matters into our own hands if justice don’t come,” he added. “I’m being honest with you. We got a 100,000 deep, ready. Ya’ll need to know that.”
This article has been expanded after publication to include additional information and revised for clarity. A video showing activists standing on a home has been removed after the individual who tweeted it out deleted it.