Feb 1, 2021
Rochester Mayor Lovely Warren says the bodycam footage of an agitated girl being pepper-sprayed by police shows police need more compassion and empathy.
The 9-year-old girl had been handcuffed and was being put in the back of a police car.
Police say they were putting the girl into the car for her own safety after her mother said the girl was planning self-harm.
Rochester police union president Mike Mazzeo says using pepper spray might not have been the best way to calm the girl down, but he doesn t know how anyone could have handled it any better.
Interim police Chief Cynthia Herriott-Sullivan has been directed by the mayor to conduct a full investigation and Rochester s Police Accountability Board is conducting its own investigation and is asking for unredacted body cam video and all other reports.
City of Rochester officials have released police body camera footage from the scene of an incident Friday where officers pepper sprayed a handcuffed 9-year-old girl as they tried to put her in the back of a police car.
The incident began when police were called to a house on Avenue B of Friday afternoon for a call about family trouble, possibly involving a stolen car. According to the Rochester Police Department, as officers investigated, one was approached by the parent of a minor who said her child was going to cause harm to herself and others, before she ran away from the residence.
Rochester Police Union Chief Defends Pepper Spraying Girl She Could Have Been Hurt Worse
On 2/1/21 at 5:32 AM EST
The head of a police union in Rochester, New York defended officers after body camera videos showed officers handcuffing and pepper spraying a distressed nine-year-old girl.
Officers had responded to the report of family trouble at a home on Avenue B at around 3:30 p.m. on Friday, Rochester Deputy Police Chief Andre Anderson said at a news conference on Sunday.
The body camera footage showed officers pushing the girl into the snow and handcuffing her as she yelled repeatedly for her father. When the girl repeatedly refused to sit inside a police vehicle, an officer sprayed her with a chemical irritant.
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Pepper sprays are conventionally associated with single women trying to ward off perverts, a safety net while commuting back from work late hours or while traveling alone.
When the footage showing Rochester Police pepper-spraying a 9-year-old girl went viral, it not just outraged many, but made several feel sick to their stomach. Was it really necessary?
[Representational image]REUTERS TV
The police in Rochester released two body camera videos on Sunday while the officers were trying to restrain and control a distraught nine-year-old girl. The girl was handcuffed and sprayed with what the police calls a chemical irritant in order to handle the girl.