More than 200 Black Lives Matter protestors trapped customers inside a Wegmans grocery store in Rochester, New York on Tuesday afternoon.
The incident comes a year after a black man named Daniel Prude died after an altercation with the Rochester Police Department. Democratic New York Attorney General Letitia James said in February that no charges would be filed against the officers involved. Activists in attendance repeatedly yelled Prude’s name.
“In the course of the investigation, the Office of the Attorney General concluded that there was sufficient evidence surrounding Mr. Prude’s death to warrant presenting the case to a grand jury,” the attorney general said in a statement.
BLM protestors can be seen in several videos formed in a mob outside of the Wegmans, chanting. Demonstrations are also happening across the city.
“Wegmans is a system that upholds white supremacy,” Ashley Gantt said, a leader of the organization Free the People Rochester, that set up Tuesday’s disturbance.
“We have a long walk today, we’re shutting s&*! down.”
Around 200 people have now closed down intersection of East & Alexander, continuing eastbound Police keeping distance, closing surrounded streets.@13WHAM #ROC pic.twitter.com/rVbs2Gjvos
— Michael_Schwartz (@MSchwartzWHAM) March 23, 2021
NOW IN ROCHESTER: More than 200 people have walked more than 2 miles with plans to disrupt. They’re approaching East Ave Wegmans. #DanielPrude pic.twitter.com/3e45DRfU7e
— Michael_Schwartz (@MSchwartzWHAM) March 23, 2021
“Allowing the mob to shut down the East Ave [Wegmans], trapping at least a hundred people, is an immoral failing by the mayor at @CityRochesterNY and the @RochesterNYPD,” tweeted reporter Bob Lonsberry, who was at the riot. ” “To kiss the a-s of the mob, the rights of others are trodden, and the city dies even more.”
Allowing the mob to shut down the East Ave @Wegmans, trapping at least a hundred people, is an immoral failing by the mayor at @CityRochesterNY and the @RochesterNYPD. To kiss the ass of the mob, the rights of others are trodden, and the city dies even more.
— Bob Lonsberry (@BobLonsberry) March 23, 2021
After being surrounded by BLM, grocery store employees boarded up the doors. Several employees can be seen inside the store shaking their heads.
BREAKING: East Ave Wegmans shut down pic.twitter.com/dcWqxmutC4
— Michael_Schwartz (@MSchwartzWHAM) March 23, 2021
According to Democrat & Chronicle reporter Justin Murphy, shoppers have not been able to leave the grocery store. Activists are drawing with chalk outside the store and ordering pizza. The mob can also be seen arguing with customers who initially came to Wegmans to shop for their groceries.
Pizza is coming soon, I’m told pic.twitter.com/XUxP8TRvh4
— Justin Murphy (@CitizenMurphy) March 23, 2021
An argument just took place with a Wegmans customer. East Ave Wegmans remains closed at this time. #roc @SPECNewsROC pic.twitter.com/YGVQ139LvT
— scott barstow (@barstow_scott) March 23, 2021
The radicals are marching to show their frustration over the death of Prude. The 41-year-old instructed officers to give him their gun and was physically restrained for two minutes, before losing consciousness and going to the hospital.
Prude was resuscitated en route to the hospital. The Monroe County Medical Examiner’s Office “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,” according to WXXI News.
The police report states:
[The paramedic] stated that the observations of the subject were that he could be experiencing ‘excited delirium,’ which she described as a condition in which the subject is experiencing agitation and aggression; increased heart rate and respiration; overheating — which she stated would explain the subject being naked on a night when temperatures were around 32 degrees and mixed snow and precipitation — sweating, flushed appearance; excessive strength, a high tolerance for pain and incoherent speech.
According to the most recent update by WXXI News, this is an ongoing situation, and protestors are still gathered outside the Wegmans.
