Prude, who was 41, died in March seven days after officers encountered him running naked through the street, handcuffed him, then tried to stop him from spitting by putting a mesh bag called a spit hood, or a spit sock, over his head.

One of the officers then held his face to the pavement while another put a knee into his back until Prude stopped speaking or moving. Waiting medics started CPR when the officers realized Prude wasn't breathing.

Mayor Lovely Warren announced the suspensions at a news conference Thursday amid outrage that city officials had kept quiet about Prude's death for months.

While denying a cover-up, Warren acknowledged that Prude "was failed by the police department, our mental health care system, our society, and he was failed by me."

 
When asked by CBS News correspondent Jericka Duncan whether Prude would have been treated differently if he was white, Warren said: "I do."

Hours after the officers were suspended, protesters demonstrated late into the night outside police headquarters in the city of 210,000, New York's third-largest.