Rochester Police
Rochester Police are under fire for detaining and pepper spraying a child who’d been reported as suicidal, and body cam video of the incident is disturbing.
Officers had handcuffed the 9-year-old girl during the Friday domestic violence call. Police say her mother was worried the girl would harm herself or others. While walking the child to a patrol car, she fell to the snowy ground, began flailing arms and screaming she wanted to see her dad.
A nearly 10-minute struggle ensued … as the girl resisted, 2 officers put the cuffs on her and attempted to put her in their car. The girl continued screaming and said she wouldn’t get in until she saw her dad.
A female officer stepped in, trying to convince her to get in the backseat. A male officer, who was trying to pull the girl in from the other side yelled, “Sit up! You’re acting like a child, stop” — to which she responded, “I am a child!! What the f***?”
The female officer eventually warned the child the cops were getting impatient, and she would be pepper sprayed if she didn’t get in the car. Less than a minute later, a male officer said, “Just spray her at this point” … and that’s what happened.
The full arrest video includes a disturbing interaction with the child’s mother, and you hear the girl accuse her mother of stabbing the father … which the mother denied.
Rochester PD initially said it was “required” to deploy pepper spray — but over the weekend Rochester Mayor Lovely Warren said, “This video, as a mother, is not anything you want to see.”
Civil rights attorney Ben Crump has taken notice of how police treated the 9-year-old, saying, “You cannot justify this!”
Police announced an internal investigation, but haven’t said if any of the involved officers have been suspended. The child was treated at a hospital and released to her family.