Authorities in Rochester, New York, are investigating a confrontation captured on video that shows police pepper spraying a 9-year-old girl while responding to a report of “family trouble,” officials said Sunday.
Rochester Mayor Lovely Warren said she directed Police Chief Cynthia Herriott-Sullivan to investigate last Friday’s incident, and the city’s police accountability board also will review what happened.
“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.
Police were called after a report that the girl was threatening to harm herself and her mother, Deputy Chief Andre Anderson told reporters.
When officers tried to move the girl into a police car to take her to a hospital, she resisted, kicking one of the officers, Anderson said.
Body camera video released by the police department Sunday shows authorities handcuffing the girl while she repeatedly screams for her father and refuses to get in the vehicle.
“You’re acting like a child,” one of the officers says at one point.
“I am a child,” she can be heard responding.
In the video, officers can be heard saying that they would pepper spray her if she continued to resist. When an officer did, Anderson said, the “effects of that didn’t work.”
It isn’t clear what happened before or after the video, which was edited by police, though Anderson said the girl was eventually taken to Rochester General Hospital and released.
The officers in the video have not been identified and additional details about the incident weren’t immediately available. A message left with the Rochester Police Department requesting an incident report wasn’t returned Sunday night.
The city’s police union also did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but in comments cited by the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle, union president Mike Mazzeo said the officer made a decision to subdue the girl and acted in a way that didn’t injure her.
“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.”
The confrontation comes less than a year after Daniel Prude, 41, died while being restrained by Rochester police with a “spit hood” over his head.
The police department’s chief and entire command staff resigned after Prude’s death, and the city enacted law enforcement reforms, including moving crisis intervention from the purview of police.
The city launched a “person in crisis” response team earlier this month, but it didn’t respond to Friday’s confrontation because the initial 911 call didn’t warrant it, Warren said.
“There were a number of events happening at once at this location, all of which required a police response,” she said.
She added that the city aims to provide a joint response between police and the crisis team to “improve how we protect our community.”
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
