Prude Family To Albany: Don’t Bury Police Misconduct Records

Daniel Prude’s relatives are urging New York lawmakers not to slam the door on police transparency, warning that a fresh push in Albany to hide disciplinary and use-of-force records would roll back hard-fought reforms sparked by his death in Rochester in March 2020. Prude died after he was restrained by Rochester police during a mental-health crisis, and the public outcry that followed helped drive state moves to open disciplinary files and body-worn camera footage. Now, a new crop of bills in the Legislature would tighten secrecy around personnel files and certain use-of-force records, putting those gains at risk, the family says.

As reported by Lohud, the family and their attorneys argue that the pending measures would gut landmark transparency rules and give cover to misconduct. They told the outlet that shutting down access to disciplinary histories makes it harder for communities and journalists to trace patterns of abuse across departments and years. The Lohud account also notes that the Prude family’s concerns echo broader resistance from civil-rights organizations and open-government advocates.

What lawmakers are proposing

One Senate bill, S.111, would write a new Section 50-a into the Civil Rights Law and put many police personnel records under lock and key, with the public able to see only the “relevant and material” pieces that a judge agrees to release from a sealed file. The bill text on LegiScan shows the measure was introduced and sent to the Codes Committee. A separate Assembly measure, A.3642, would forbid law-enforcement agencies from releasing the criminal-history or mental-health records of people who were the subject of police use of force, language the sponsors describe as a privacy shield and that critics say could still narrow avenues for oversight.

Why critics and the Prude family are alarmed

Civil-rights and transparency advocates warn that these proposals would undercut the 2020 repeal of Civil Rights Law Section 50-a and restore a culture of secrecy around misconduct investigations. The New York Civil Liberties Union has publicly lined up against related efforts and labeled them a serious threat to open government, while groups such as Reinvent Albany have circulated memos cautioning that carving “unfounded” or “exonerated” complaints out of the Freedom of Information Law would obscure patterns of abuse. Opponents say the court-review provisions in some bills are no real substitute for regular public access and independent watchdogs.

The Prude case and transparency's role

The New York Attorney General’s investigation into Daniel Prude’s death laid out the details of the March 2020 encounter and offered reform recommendations, including clearer rules on releasing body-worn camera footage and stronger alternatives for responding to mental-health crises. Many of those ideas depended on public records to expose systemic problems. Those findings, set out in the Attorney General’s report, are now being cited by advocates as proof that transparency can force policy change. For Prude’s family and allied activists, that history is exactly why broad access to records remains central to accountability and reform.

What happens next

For now, the competing bills sit in committee, facing both internal debate and pressure from families and advocacy groups that want them shelved. LegiScan lists S.111 as introduced and referred to the Senate Codes Committee, and the official legislative page for A.3642 places it in the Assembly Governmental Operations Committee. Any measure that moves forward would still need approval from both chambers and the governor’s signature before it could become law.

Legal implications

Several of the proposals would turn judges into the primary gatekeepers for sealed personnel records, instead of allowing the public to obtain those files directly. Critics warn that this setup invites drawn-out battles over what gets redacted and what stays hidden. Reinvent Albany argues in its analysis that relying on judicial review would still leave large portions of misconduct histories out of view, with concrete consequences for local oversight efforts and investigative reporting.