*Hundreds of protesters in Rochester, NY shut down a Wegmans store for nearly five hours Tuesday, calling for justice and reform on the one-year anniversary of Daniel Prude’s death in police custody.
Demonstrators blocked entrances to the East Avenue store’s parking lot and wrote messages in chalk supporting the Black Lives Matter and Defund the Police movements. Wegmans officials tweeted a statement Tuesday saying all shoppers were brought out of the store and it wold remain closed until Wednesday at 6 a.m.
On March 23, 2020, Rochester cops stopped Prude on Jefferson Avenue while he was experiencing a mental health crisis. The 41-year-old was naked and high on PCP. Police body camera video showed that just minutes after police arrived, Prude was placed in a restraint hold by three officers. Less than ten minutes later, Prude became unresponsive and never woke up. He died one week later. The Monroe County Medical Examiner’s report listed his cause of death as homicide.
On Tuesday morning, protesters gathered at Parcel 5 in Rochester to honor Prude’s memory. From there, they marched to St. Paul Street and Mortimer Street and shut down the RTS terminal while marching. Passengers had to exit a bus that was slated to leave. From there, they marched to the intersection of East Avenue and Alexander Street and made their way to the East Avenue Wegmans store, where they stopped. Police kept their distance and closed surrounding streets.
Why Wegmans as the protesters’ gathering place?
“When the police was pepper spraying us and tear-gassing us and all that, Wegmans sent them pizzas, wings,” a protester explained below (at the 1 min mark).
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