#Angry mob of Rochester protesters chase off TV reporter, dramatic video shows

A news reporter and a security guard in Rochester were chased away by an angry mob of Daniel Prude protesters, including one who appeared to be wielding a knife, dramatic video shows.

The footage from Sunday’s protests in Rochester shows WHEC reporter Charles Molineaux and a security guard being told to get away by demonstrators marching toward the city’s Public Safety Building.

Protests erupted in the upstate New York city last week following the release of police bodycam footage showing cops pressing Prude’s face into the ground until he stopped breathing. Prude, who was black, later died.

“Go home, go home, go home!” the crowd chanted as Molineaux and the guard were confronted in a nearby parking lot, video shows. One protester is seen waving a Black Lives Matter flag.

“Just leave, go that way!” one man tells them. “Go out the parking lot!”

“Get the f–k up out of here!” another man yells.

Molineaux then pulls out his cellphone and snaps a photo, which he later posted on Twitter, before the guard motions that the pair needs to leave the area immediately.

They then start walking briskly away from the protesters before two men, including one who appeared to be armed with a knife, made threatening motions toward them, the clip shows.

The pair then start running away as protesters chase them through the parking lot while someone yells “let them go.”

One demonstrator appeared to get within several feet of Molineaux and the security guard — but neither was hurt during the heated confrontation, WHEC reports.

“Yo, I’m about to kill ‘em, brah,” one man says on the footage as Molineaux and the guard run off.

The frightening encounter occurred after a few people asked Molineaux what he was doing in the parking lot.

“First I heard from anybody asking who we were, I said we were local TV news,” Molineaux told WHEC.

“I didn’t say ‘Channel 10’ because some of the organizers of the protests have been angry at Channel 10 for some reason. I didn’t want to go there right away. And I also wasn’t wearing my Channel 10 insignia for that reason.”

Molineaux did eventually identify himself as a WHEC reporter, but his security guard told him they needed to go as more people approached them.

The guard at one point used pepper spray during the confrontation, although Molineaux said he didn’t see it being used. He also said he did not notice the man who appeared to swing a knife at him.

“There were so many people swinging at us and throwing things, and somebody was swinging a flag at us, but a knife?” Molineaux told the station. “First I saw of a knife was in an email this afternoon. No, we never saw a knife. I never saw a knife.”

Molineaux and his security guard later returned to the area, where they met up with a photographer, before Molineaux reported on the protest during the station’s 11 p.m. newscast, WHEC reports.

Rochester police, meanwhile, said no arrests were made during Sunday’s protest, which drew roughly 1,000 demonstrators demanding police accountability in Prude’s death.

Joe Prude, Prude’s brother who called 911 for help with his erratic behavior, blasted Rochester police at protests Monday night — calling them “cold-blooded damn killers” who assassinated the 41-year-old father of five.

Bodycam footage released last week shows Prude yelling while handcuffed and naked, as cops put a hood over his head to stop him from spitting before holding him down for about two minutes until he stopped breathing.

A medical examiner has ruled Prude’s death a homicide caused by “complications of asphyxia in the setting of physical restraint, excited delirium [and] acute phencyclidine [PCP] intoxication.”

New York Attorney General Letitia James said Saturday she would form a grand jury as part of an “exhaustive investigation” into Prude’s death.

With Post wires