The Rochester Police Dept. is getting criticism nationwide after releasing body cam footage showing several officers, unmasked, taking a 9-year old girl to the ground, handcuffing her, placing her inside a police vehicle, and pepper spraying her when she refused to place her feet inside the car.
Responding to a call of “family trouble" and a possible stolen vehicle, nine officers arrived at a family home and were told the child had said she wanted to kill herself and her mother, CNN reports. In the video she can be heard crying for her father.
The Rochester Police Dept. issued a statement that further inflamed outrage, claiming multiple times officers' actions were "required."
Police officers "tried to put the girl in the back of a patrol car, at which point she pulled away and kicked at them," the Democrat & Chronicle reports. The paper also included the body cam videos, which are disturbing. "In a statement Saturday, they said this action 'required' an officer to take the girl down to the ground. Then, they said, 'for the minor's safety and at the request of the custodial parent on scene,' the child was handcuffed and put in the back of a police car."
After the 9-year old "disobeyed multiple commands to put her feet in the car," the paper, citing the RPD statement, adds, a "Rochester police officer was then 'required' to spray an 'irritant' in the handcuffed girl's face, the department said Saturday."
CNN reports that "in the video, a female officer is seen talking to the girl, eventually saying, 'This is your last chance, otherwise pepper spray's going in your eyeballs.' About a minute later, another officer can be heard saying, 'Just spray her at this point.' The female officer is seen shaking a can that appears to be pepper spray and the child continues to scream."
The young child was clearly in distress, as the body cam footage shows.
Some responses via social media:
She's 9 and handcuffed. Why couldn't they just wrap her up in a blanket and put her in the car? Is her submission to their authority a prerequisite to achieving the goal of transporting her to the hospital?
— michael prelee (@michaelprelee) February 1, 2021
Acknowledging that she's 9 when seeking to justify pepper spraying her is not the defense he thinks it is. https://t.co/5cF8FokbT7
— Ahmed Baba (@AhmedBaba_) February 1, 2021
She's 9 years old. What in the fuck would justify traumatizing this girl like this? I don't give a shit what she did. That's irrelevant. This is so disgusting. These cops didn't do that because they had to. They did it because they had fun doing it.
— Dallas (@ChronicDal) February 1, 2021
Every last excuse for police brutality vanishes when you see six cops pepper spray a girl who's 9, with two of them threatening her and four watching. It's hideous. Monstrous. https://t.co/MN88lNlP9l
— JRehling (@JRehling) February 1, 2021
Never once have we had to use pepper spray to keep students or staff safe.
If you can't handle a 9 year old having a mental health episode, pick another career than law enforcement. Lord knows, if this was some child in Pittsford, they sure ain't getting pepper sprayed. — SportsRoc (@SportsRoc2) February 1, 2021
Sorry, but there can be absolutely no excusing this. If fully grown adult Police Officers cannot deal with a 9 year old child without the use of pepper spray & handcuffs, they are unfit for purpose. NO EXCUSE.
— 𝕊𝕥𝕖𝕧𝕖 ℍ𝕚𝕝𝕝𝕗𝕠𝕣𝕥 (@PrinceOfLurg) February 1, 2021
This goes to show exactly how much police accountability and police reform are needed. This justification for spray peppering a 9 year old carries with it the implied far more excessive force they would have used had the kid been older. “At least we only used pepper spray"🤬
— Andrew Rothstein (@ASRothstein) February 1, 2021
I'm a mother of 4 and student teacher. There is absolutely zero reason whatsoever to EVER pepper spray a 9 year old child. I don't care if she bit the officers, I don't care if she kicked and screamed and I don't care if she threw herself on the ground & cursed them out. NONE.
— circe le femme (@CerseiLe) February 1, 2021
But they cry about defunding. Seems like they have more cops than they need. Rochester needed 8 of their "bravest" to go pepper spray a 9 year old. Morons
— Soyuz (@Zambioza) February 1, 2021
