The Rochester, NY Police Department released body camera footage Sunday showing a 9-year-old girl handcuffed and pepper sprayed by police officers who responded to a family disturbance.
During the incident, which took place on Friday afternoon, officers restrained the girl and pushed her into the snow to handcuff her while she repeatedly shouted at her father, the footage showed.
At one point, an officer said, “You are acting like a child.” She replied, “I am a child.”
When she did not want to sit in a police car, an officer sprayed her with pepper spray.
The incident brought the Rochester Police Department back under scrutiny, months after the city was toppled by the announcement that Daniel Prude, a black man, had been strangled to death last year after Rochester police officers put him in a hood.
Dealing with the death of Mr. Prude forced the mayor of the city to abruptly fire the police chief in September, and the department faced accusations of a cover-up after it was revealed that officers killed Mr. Prude was characterized as a result of an overdose of drugs.
In the case of mr. Prude was released the footage of the body six months after his death, only after his family sued the city. Officials at the time of the death repeatedly tried to hide the videos from the public to prevent harmful outbursts, according to the city’s documents released last year.
At a news conference on Sunday, police department leaders promised to be more transparent, and the footage of the girl sprayed with pepper spray was released about 48 hours after the incident. The video was diverted to dull her face, and her name was not made public.
“I’m not going to stand here and tell you that a 9-year-old has to be pepper sprayed,” Rochester Police Chief Cynthia Herriott-Sullivan said.
City Mayor Lovely Warren said the girl reminded her of her own ten-year-old daughter.
“I can tell you that as a mother, this video is nothing you want to see,” she said. Warren said and her voice rose with emotion.
“This is not something any of us want to justify can justify,” she added. “And that’s something we need to change.”
She and police officers urged the city police officers to respond with more empathy and compassion to incidents, saying that officers need better training in de-escalation and that the department needs to review its internal culture.
The incident highlighted the long-standing problem that officers in many police departments were trained to subject violent suspects and were often poorly equipped to deal with people who were desperately or mentally ill.
On Friday afternoon, officers received a 911 call reporting ‘family problems’ and dressing the 9-year-old girl, dressed in a black hoodie and colorful leggings. She “indicated that she wanted to kill herself, and that she wanted to kill her mother,” Deputy Chief of Police Andre Anderson said Sunday.
The girl initially tried to run away, Mr. Anderson said. She repeatedly shouted at the officers, “I want my father.” While officers handcuffed her, she begged them to stop, covering her body with snow, video footage showed.
The officers tried to escort her to the back of a police car so that she could be transported to the hospital, Mr. Anderson said.
Sad and emotional, the girl said she did not want to enter the car until she saw her father, the video showed. The officers became increasingly impatient and strict. She kicked one of the officers, Mr. Anderson said.
Other officers encouraged her to relax and take a deep breath.
Finally, an officer said, “Just spray her at this point.”
She screamed. After an officer sprayed her with an irritation in the face, the officers placed her in the back seat and locked the door. “Incredible,” an officer said.
The scene took place in front of houses in an area that was apparently a neighborhood. The video shows at least six police vehicles arriving to respond to the call.
The girl was transported to the hospital and has since been released.