An incident is being investigated in Rochester, NY, after police pepper-sprayed a 9-year-old girl after authorities responded to reports of “family trouble.”
Rochester Mayor Lovely Warren directed police Chief Cynthia Herriott-Sullivan to investigate last Friday’s incident.
“This is not something that any of us should want to justify,” Warren said, adding that she saw “her baby’s face” when she looked at the 9-year-old girl.
Deputy Chief Andre Anderson told reporters that police were called after a warning that the girl was trying to harm herself and her mother.
As she resisted, she kicked one of the officers, Anderson said, as officers attempted to transfer her into the police car to take her to a hospital.
The camera footage released on Sunday shows the officer handcuffing the girl as she repeatedly cried for her father after refusing to get in the car.
“You’re acting like a child,” one of the officers says at one point. “I am a child,” she responded.
Officers are then seen pepper-spraying the girl after she didn’t follow the command to get inside the vehicle.
What happened before or after the video, which was edited by the police, is not clear. Anderson said the girl was ultimately taken to Rochester General Hospital and released.
Union president Mike Mazzeo said the officer decided to subdue the girl and acted in a way that didn’t injure her.
He said, “I’m not saying there are not better ways to do things,” Mazzeo told the newspaper. “But let’s be realistic about what we’re facing…It’s not TV; it’s not Hollywood. We don’t have a simple (situation), where we can put out our hands and have somebody be instantly handcuffed and comply.”
Rochester Police Chief Cynthia Herriott-Sullivan said that what happened was not acceptable.
“I’m not going to stand here and tell you that for a 9-year-old to have to be pepper-sprayed is OK. It’s not,” Herriott-Sullivan said. “I don’t see that as who we are as a department, and we’re going to do the work we have to do to ensure that these kinds of things don’t happen.”
The officers involved in the incident were not identified by police, nor were the child or her mother.
Anderson said Sunday he was “not making any excuses for what transpired” and that the department is “looking at a culture change.”
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