ROCHESTER, N.Y. — The city of Rochester has named the amphitheater in Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Park after Daniel Prude, a man who died in Rochester Police custody in March 2020.

Daniel Prude Square, which already had a large mural painted in his honor, is now marked with a permanent sign, the city announced Monday.

Prude’s 44th birthday would have been this Tuesday.

“The City of Rochester will never forget Daniel Prude,” Mayor Malik Evans said in a statement. “His death reverberated across and beyond our region, and we will memorialize him and ensure his name is remembered.”

“This location in MLK Park is a place where people gather for celebrations, meet up for marches and peaceful protests, or take a quiet moment to themselves during the day,” Rochester City Council President Miguel A. Meléndez, Jr. said in a statement. “It is the perfect location to name Daniel Prude Square, where we will be reminded of community mobilization in the wake of tragedy and our City’s commitment to crisis response.”

Prude was found naked on Jefferson Avenue in March 2020. Police say he was high on PCP at the time. An autopsy later found he did have drugs in his system, but the manner of death was ruled a homicide.

Police body camera footage shows officers putting a spit hood over his head and then holding him to the ground. Prude eventually lost consciousness and died at the hospital a week later.

Prude's death in police custody was not revealed until September 2020, which unleashed a wave of criticism and weeks-long protests against the Rochester Police Department and Mayor Lovely Warren. The fallout from how the city handled the case resulted in top brass at the department retiring or leaving. Seven police officers were suspended several months after Prude died. 

In February 2021, New York Attorney General Letitia James announced that a grand jury had declined to indict any police officers in connection with Prude’s death.

The city says after the circumstances of Prude’s death were made public, new programs and initiatives were created, including the Office of Crisis Intervention Services and Person In Crisis Team, which acts as an alternative first responder team designed to prevent situations like what happened to Daniel Prude from happening in the future.